


(offer me) that Deathless Death

by melonbug



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Curses, Death, Fate, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9294605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbug/pseuds/melonbug
Summary: It was the curse he and his family were fated to: Death would come for him the moment he turned eighteen, and he could only hope the flimsy wards passed down through the generations would protect him. But Death always won eventually, Death would snatch him up as he had all of his ancestors.But somehow he wasn't what Yuuri had expected. He was a constant presence in his life, barely there. A vigilant spectator to his burgeoning skating career, a gray haired man with a soft expression who found him again and again, waiting for him to let his guard down, but becoming something more, over time."Don't be careless," his sister told him, but they were all careless, in the end.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this story was inspired by the comic found here: http://charminglyantiquated.tumblr.com/post/152308033528
> 
> It's lovely, give it a read!
> 
> Anyway, this began as a oneshot that kind of spiraled into something more. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Tags may change and rating may change, though no higher than Mature.

The first time his mother explained it to him, voice calm and soft in that way mother’s voices often where, he was too young to fully understand what it was she was telling him: Their family was cursed, and death would come for them, eventually. He had found it strange, then, only ten years old, because everyone died eventually, that much he understood, at least, but that didn’t make them cursed. It only made them human, as everyone else was.

He understood, though, when he was older, by the time his mother pushed a worn iron necklace into his hands, the metal rough, the clasp strong but ancient. It seemed such a fragile, flimsy thing, all the same as he slipped it on. “He’ll come for you when you turn eighteen,” she explained to him, and she was always such a bright and bubbly women that the somberness of her tone seemed strange. It was enough to alarm him, to take her seriously. “He’ll come and steal your life away, just as he did your father’s.” And she only talked about his father with a soft smile on her face, but now she only looked forlorn.

Death came for everyone, eventually, but Death would come for him sooner, and he was only a few weeks out from his eighteenth birthday. His mother explained it to him, the curse upon their family: as the son of his father, who was the son of his father, who was the son of his mother, and so on and so forth, Death haunted them and waited to snatch them away. That was the curse they bore, to die long before their time. And now only he and his sister were left, of all the ancestors that had bore them. Death had gotten to each and every one of them, eventually.

(And Death would not be sated until they were all of them gone)

He struggled to make sense of it all from his mother’s explanation, thinking surely this wasn’t true, surely it was some trick. And then Mari sat him down and made it  _ real _ , the only other one left in the world cursed as he was. “There are wards,” she told him, “To protect yourself,” and she gestured to the chain around her neck, and he noticed that it matched the one his mother had handed him. He had never put much thought to it before, but she always wore it, now that he  _ did _ think to notice it. “The Onsen is a safe haven, it’s blessed,” she continued, and she only rarely ever left, and he had always assumed she was an introvert, only it made so much sense now. “When you’re here, Death can’t come for you, he can’t enter.” But he wouldn’t be there forever, and they both knew it.

He was a prodigy, a rising star in figure skating, and he was abroad almost more often than not, had his eyes set on a school in America, on a prospective coach there. And his mother, always so supportive and loving and kind, had been dropping hints for months that he should reconsider leaving home for so long, and he had always assumed she had just been worried, that she would miss him and couldn’t bear the thought of him going away for four years.

But it all made sense, every small thing falling into place within the bigger picture. His mother was worried, but not for any of the reasons he had thought, for a different reason entirely than anything he could have fathomed a year or two earlier. But there were wards, Mari told him, he would still be able to protect himself, surely.

She tapped her fingers against her own necklace, which was thinner than his own. “Iron protects you,” she told him, playing with the metal idly. “But always in a circle, necklaces, bracelets, that sort of thing. It has power in that form.” She sighed and dropped her hand back into her lap, shifting and digging through her pockets. She was fidgety, and they were all nervous gestures that reflected his own when he was anxious and he understood her sudden pauses, her hesitation and occasional fumbling for words. “Anyway, it will keep him at bay, but he’ll still be there, watching. And there are other things too, a few rare sigils, but they’re really too complex to be of much use. Rings of salt, but again, not much use to you.” She finished with her pockets and pulled from them her cigarettes, lighting one with a gesture that could only be called frustrated. Yuuri understood that, as well. “Sprigs of eucalyptus, motherwort, if you can even find it. And iron, as I said before. Iron is best.”

She watched him carefully and he felt dizzy beneath her gaze, beneath the information she was regurgitating to him, beneath the weight of the iron curled around his fingers. He pinched a finger between the links and flinched, jerking his hand from the necklace and letting it fall into his lap. And Mari only watched.

“Of course,” she continued after a long moment of him trying to steady his breathing, which she allowed him the time to do. “You’ll need more creative ways to protect yourself while you skate.” And he frowned, looking down to the necklace once more. As a piece of jewelry, it was awkward and a bit unsightly, but nothing out of the ordinary. But on the ice— He didn’t know, hadn’t yet put thought to it beyond whether or not he would even make it that far because he was starting to feel more and more as if he didn’t even have a chance.

But Mari had made it six years already, and that had to count for something. She fumbled once more in her pockets and held something out to him, pressing it into his palm. He looked down and it was a worn ring, iron and cold and somehow still delicate. “It’s not  _ ideal _ ,” she explained. “It’s too small, and more likely to—” she didn’t say and only trailed off, taking a drag from her cigarette. “It will keep you safe, that’s what’s important.” He slipped it on, and it fit snug and comfortable on his ring finger, so that’s where he left it. “It’s an heirloom, as well. I mean, I guess. I found it in dad’s things a few years ago.”

Yuuri looked down at it where it shone slightly against his finger. It was old, definitely, clearly roughly forged (was that how you shaped iron? He didn’t know) and it was crisscrossed by scratches and strange angles where it had been warped from age. “What did we do?” he asked at last, quiet and sullen as the mood that had fallen about the room. He forced his head up and met her eyes. “What did we do to deserve this?”

Mari shrugged. “I’m assuming some great, great, great someone or other wronged Death, but who knows,” she said. “Mom might now, but she probably won’t want to talk about it.”

They’d wronged Death, and here they were wronging Death again. Correcting a wrong with another wrong, refusing the hand which fate had done them. They looked at Death and they laughed. Yuuri wasn’t laughing though, only felt the distant prick of tears working their way into the corner of his eyes.

“Remember,” Mari continued, “You won’t be home on your birthday.” He would be at a competition, he would be skating his third Grand Prix Final. “Don’t be careless, Yuuri,” and her eyes were soft and tired, and he felt it, as tired as she was, only he had yet to bear the full burden of the curse, as she had for so long.

“Was dad careless?” he asked quietly, more to the lingering silence than to her, but she shifted forward and pull him into a hug, and she smelled of smoke and chlorine and cloves.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

— 

He was all nerves as he finally left for his competition. His mother hugged him three different times, and even Mari hugged him again, and it was as many hugs in so many days from her, rare but welcome all the same.

Minako accompanied him, as his coach, and she kept sharp eyes on him all through the flight, the taxi ride, even as they checked into the hotel and she handed him his key card just outside his room. And it was only while he fumbled with the door and his heavy baggage that she offered an explanation, his nervousness beneath her gaze clear as crystal. He was always nervous before competitions, but now he was more so, but not because of her gaze.

“Your mom wanted me to keep a close eye on you,” she told him, holding the door open so he could heave his luggage inside. “Said she had a bad feeling.” And it was unlike his mother, and perhaps Minako realized as much. The intensity she usually had was gone, now, replaced only with a soft smile.

He feigned surprise, but he wasn’t in the slightest. Minako had always been like a second mother to him, and so she understood the nervous feelings of a mother. “I’ll be careful,” he promised her as he finally dropped down onto his bed, and nodded and then left him alone. Him and his bags and the circle of iron around his neck and the dying light of the room as the sun set outside his windows.

He would be eighteen at midnight, and he ran a finger across the chain where it lay beneath his shirt. He was scared, suddenly, more frightened than he had been since Mari had first laid it all out for him. His breath caught in his throat and his anxiety caught him tight around his heart like a vice grip and he dragged his hand down to clutch at his shirt there, pulling the cotton into a fist. He cried, and he rarely did, now, but it was too much, all of it. A competition, his birthday, Death. Death wouldn’t get him that night, but one day. One day he would.

No, Yuuri wouldn’t allow it. And the resolve calmed his nerves only a bit and his breathing slowed, finally, into something relatively normal. He wouldn’t allow it, he  _ wouldn’t _ . He would defy Death, just as everyone in his family once had, but he would succeed where all others had fail. He and his sister were the only two left, and he had to make it, otherwise everyone else snatched up by Death would have failed in vain.

He fell back into the bed, tired and jet lagged and body still tense from his brief bout of anxiety, but he had quenched it for now, recalled it back for tomorrow, when it would strike again before his short program, as it always did. But that would be a problem for tomorrow, he still had to deal with the problem of the night, first.

Before he left, he had asked Mari, “What will he look like?” and she had shaken her head and responded, “Not how you would expect,” and she had left it at that and he hadn’t understood, had struggled to put an image to the title  _ Death _ but all he could summon up were images of gruesome spectors and robed monsters with scythes.

What he woke up to was different, and he understood now what she had meant, why she had not elaborated on it. It was just past midnight and he knew only because it had to be for Him to have come, and he cracked his eyes open to a light that was almost blinding, a silver, ghastly glow. It hurt to look at it, but within it was the silhouette of something that might have been human, perhaps once upon a time. He averted his gaze, to where a hand, human but with the same glow about it, hovered above his ankle, where it lay beneath the blankets.

Yuuri was scared to speak for a long moment, his breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding fast in his chest. And around his neck, the iron burned white hot and hung heavy, begging to be removed, and he reached up and touched it before yanking his hand away. Mari had neglected to mention that, how bad his flimsy protection would pain him in the presence of Death. Perhaps she had not had opportunity enough to learn for herself, as rarely as she left the onsen. Whatever the case, the pain brought tears to his eyes and he sat there, horrified and anxious, nothing but a flimsy piece of metal between him and his death.

“It’s you,” he said at last, throat scratchy. His hand shook where it had come to rest in his lap, an air of sadness and fatigue and anguish hanging about the room that made it almost difficult to breath. This was Death, a spector, a shadow of a human. This would be what would come for him, eventually.

“It is me,” Death said, and his voice was nothing like he looked: accented with an ancient dialect, steady and almost kind. Death, who came to kill him, sounded almost pleasant. Death turned his eyes on him, and though he could not see it, he felt it, a powerful ancient gaze that froze him to his spot. “Soon,” he continued, and Yuuri felt faint. “Soon, I’ll come for you.”

And Yuuri blinked and he was gone, leaving only the unpleasant feeling his gut, the cold chill of the room, to tell him it hadn’t just been a dream, he had really been there.

He slept only fitfully through the rest of the night, and he woke feeling ill, the iron chain now a heavy burden where it hung around his neck, only a lingering pain to remind him of the visit from earlier that night. Mari had never once mentioned it, but it seemed fitting, all the same: the pain, the weight of it all. They looked Death in the eyes with their protections, their flimsy, halfhearted attempts to ward themselves from him, and they  _ mocked _ him. And Death didn’t like it.

He spent too long pushing through his grogginess as he prepared for the day’s events, splashing his face with cold water to wake himself up, taking long, deep breaths to push down any coming anxiety. He was tired, he was too tired even for his own anxiety and it settled in the pit of his stomach, making him queasy, setting a steady tremor through him. By the time he slipped on his costume and the iron ring, shoving the necklace into his bag, he thought he would be sick and he felt he might faint at any second.

And the pain from the night before remained, a disgusting red ring around his neck that lay blessedly hidden beneath the heavy collar of sparkles and rhinestones that spread downward into the pitch black of his outfit. And the ring sat cold and heavy against his finger, as the necklace had previously done. It made him all the more weary.

By the time Minako came for him, he was fighting down yawns. She took one look at him and clicked her tongue, setting about him wildly, fixing his hair, his makeup, adjusting his collar and, with a gentle motion, his posture. And by the time she dragged him out, his bag over her shoulder, track suit pulled on over his entire ensemble, he looked every bit as presentable as he needed to be. Minako was good at that sort of thing, presentation. Presentation was the foundation of the entire routine, she had told him once, laid the framework for all the rest, for properly conveying the passion he needed to make it through.

His short program was third, and he warmed up only briefly to conserve his energy. And Minako continued to fret over him as a mother might, but more so as a coach would. “Will you be okay?” she asked him, smoothing out the looseness in his hair once more. He shrugged out of his jacket and dropped to a bench to double check the laces on his skates, the fit of them, because that was more important than all the rest.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and he would be, because all of his usual fidgeting was lost to his exhaustion, but he could skate, and he would. It was what he did best, and he would do it best again.

He took to the ice only moments after the applause finally died down from the previous skater, and Minako stood by the rinks edge, his hands in hers as she walked him through what to do, gave her usual motivational speech. And then, when she was done, she smiled large and excited and he felt it rejuvenating him. “You’ll do fine, Yuuri. You always do.” He gave her one last nod and handed his guards over, finally skating out into the middle of the rink, doing a few warm up laps as he did so, to a small smattering of applause.

And as he began, he thought of anything but Death, pushed the curse far from his mind, even with only the small ring between him and it, far less than the necklace had been. He might have been able to wear it beneath the costume, as high a collar as it had, but it was snug and it would have shown, bumpy and awkward.

Then he began, his music drifting our softly across the now silent rink. And he landed every jump flawlessly, as he had practiced, but many were still simple, only one quad in among them all, but he had practiced and practiced and that was all that mattered, now, him and the ice and the melody of his music, the choreography that was more than routine, now. His heart raced as he moved, beat harder and faster with each jump landed successfully, each step sequence done flawless, and they were his strongest moves.

And as he came down from his final spin, dizzy, spots dancing across his eyes, arms raised out to the crowd in the last few seconds of his performance, he felt eyes on him. Eyes that were distinctively not those from the people in the audience, but a particular stare that was reminiscent of his midnight guest: ancient and cold and setting the pain from his ring into a steady throb until he wanted to wrench it off, but he didn’t.

Death was watching him, and he tried to pick him out from the crowd, looking for any glow, any hint of the silver spectre that had appeared to him just after midnight, but there was nothing there, and he finished his program, arms extended outward, seeking the presence, drawing his eyes to him, and he knew Death as there, watching.

And then he had to leave the rink, and he skated back after his many bows, after snatching up an errant bouquet that caught his attention. Minako was waiting for him and threw herself into him, enough so to nearly knock him over, her eyes dancing, and he laughed, feeding off her energy, and the eyes on him now forgotten, though the absence of pain in his finger told him he was long gone. She practically dragged him to the kiss and cry, and he sat jolting his leg, worn out but excited all the same.

He’d done well enough at his previous Finals, but never enough to place. But his ranking put him second, at least until the free skate, and he only felt all the more excited.

His curse was forgotten.

And he was awake and livelier the next morning, as he prepared for the free skate. Until he was slipping into his outfit, this time a blue ensemble, more formal, with a collar. And he snatched up the necklace and had it halfway over his head before he realized himself. He didn’t have the ring on yet, and he’d almost torn off his only protection carelessly, and his blood ran cold, his mood crashing down.

_ Don’t be careless _ , Mari had warned him, but there he was. And the repercussions of carelessness—. He would die, the instant Death was able to draw him into his frigid hands. He could’ve died from a thoughtless action, and his hands shook as he slipped on his ring and pulled off the necklace, dropping it into the sink, staring into the mirror at his now pale face.

Minako was all the more concerned this morning than the one before, and she caught him by the shoulder, looking him over. “Did you not sleep well?” she asked quietly and he shook his head, shaking a few strands of hair loose. She licked a finger and combed it back, a motion he was too familiar with from her.

“No,” he croaked. “Just nerves.” And nerves was a good enough excuse.

By the time he touched the ice, all of his thoughts were now on the curse, where it hadn’t been before, and he skated with fear, with a hesitation that he desperately hoped the judges didn’t notice. But his routine was again as planned, jumps done correctly, only one quad turning into a last minute triple, and the announcer was a constant drone in his ear, pointing out every flaw, but he hardly cared.

The first sign of Death’s presence came again in the burn of his ring, and then he saw him as he launched into the last jump, locked eyes with stormy blue ones, a gray haired man standing at the edge of the rink, dressed not quite formal, a sport jacket thrown on over a button up. His hair was long, hung loose and wild about his shoulders. And he was nothing like Yuuri expected, and he nearly lost his footing as he lifted from the ice, but he landed it with only a shaky movement in his ankle. And as he finished, he looked to where he had been, hoping to see him again, heart thudding in his ears so loud it drowned out all other sounds, but Death was gone.

He took bronze.


	2. Year 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there is some music in the last half of this chapter that kind of sets the mood for the entire chapter. It can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwEcOZjuFko) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-pwPIRW9fY)
> 
> A little bit of clarity as well: Victor is Death in this story, though I think it's a bit more obvious from here on out.

The year began the same way as the prior one had, Yuuri still coming down shakily from the adrenaline of his previous season, skating now for the sake of skating and not practice. For fun, because he had always enjoyed skating more than anything else. But there was gloom as well that fell over the new year and the burn of his necklace was a constant reminder.

He saw Death, on occasion, caught gray hair from the corner of his eye as he skated, but whenever he turned to look no one was there. It began to bring about a frantic paranoia in him that had never been there before and looked over his shoulder near constantly, jumped at the slightest of cool breezes. And Yuuri saw him always: in the figure standing across the street, watching him as he jogged by, in the man in the corner of a coffee shop, in the other skates using the ice while he was at Hasetsu Ice Castle.

Even Mari had taken to casting worried glances his way and Yuuri was certain she wanted to say something to him but he never gave her the chance. He was doing what she wasn’t, he was out and about constantly, and not even his growing fear of Death would stand in the way of it. But part of him was jealous of her, in the constant safety of the onsen. But he was resolved to go about his life as usual.

And maybe that was his problem. This  _ wasn’t _ life as usual, but it would become usual for him eventually.

In mid March he saw Death as he walked Makkachin on the beach and he drew to a stop, blood running cold, because it was his first real sighting of him since the Final the year prior. He panicked, clutched at his neckline, frantic that this was it, this was Death coming for him, but he found the burning iron there and he relaxed his grip, lest he tear it off himself. He let go of the breath that had caught in his throat and Death continued over, strolling across the sand.

He was dressed for the weather, though Yuuri was certain he needn’t to. But he wore a long coat, a thick scarf wrapped close around his neck, and gloves on hands that were tucked into his pockets. He knelt down when he was barely feet from Yuuri, gesturing and calling Makkachin over and Yuuri lunged forward.

“Don’t touch him,” he exclaimed, blocking Makkachin from reaching him. “ _ Don’t _ —” And Death stood back up and smiled a smile at him that would have made anyone else hard pressed to believe who he really was. And Yuuri was burning with questions, with fear, with the iron around his neck. “Why are you here?” After so long of haunting him, why would he choose to show himself now?

Death grinned, something brighter than his previous smile, and lifted his eyes to the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in it, nothing but pristine blue for as far as the eye could see. “It’s a lovely day,” he explained simply. “I thought I’d come and enjoy it.” And Yuuri tightened his grip on the necklace, the metal scorching his hand.

“No,” Yuuri whispered. “You’re only here to mock me.”

Death looked at him for a long, quiet moment, broken only by the seagulls in the distance. “Is it so hard to believe that I also enjoy the little things in life?”

Yuuri laughed, but it was harsh and brittle. “You’re  _ Death _ ,” he said, “You don’t have a life to enjoy, not the life I have to enjoy.”

“Then why aren’t you enjoying it too?” Death asked softly and Yuuri staggered backwards, tripping over Makkachin and falling down into the sand. When he looked up Death was gone.

—

He left for the states soon after, for college. He left sooner than he needed to because he had a season to prepare for and it was early April already and he was behind, falling more and more behind by the day. He wasn’t worried though, because any concern for the future of his career was drowned out by Death hanging over him. He was biding his time, Yuuri knew. He was watching and waiting and mocking him for every second of it.

Mari accompanied him to the train station with his mother and Minako, to his great surprise. It struck him, then, that she wasn’t truly resigning her life to what it was; She loved him and supported him, and she was there to see him off, no matter the potential consequences. She dealt with the curse as well, but she dealt with it better than he did.

Minako was the saddest goodbye. She held him for too long and he thought she might cry. “Yuuri,” she said, “I wish I could be your coach forever.” And he wanted it too, wanted it more than anything, but he had to go eventually and she couldn’t go with him.

“I know,” he said, and he thought he might cry his own tears as his mother finally pulled him close. She didn’t cry though, because she had always been strong and bright and happy, and even now she was happy for him. She made him promise to call her every day and he did, he promised, but they both knew he wouldn’t be able too. But it was a small reassurance to them both either way.

And then it was Mari’s turn and she was the hardest goodbye, because she had come to see him off and she knew better than anyone what he would really be facing away from his family, away from home. She hugged him only briefly, because it wasn’t like her, though there had been so many hugs in the last year he was starting to think maybe she only reserved her allotment of hugs for him. “Don’t stop living your life, Yuuri,” she whispered to him so that no one else could hear and his heart dropped into his stomach. And he did cry then, ugly tears into her shoulder, and she allowed it until it passed, and Minako and his mother didn’t intrude on their moment.

—

There were no watchful eyes on him for the entirety of his journey, from the station to the airport and to the states, where his new coach was waiting for him. He’d be his new lifeline, the person who would be there for him from the on out, and Yuuri had only talked to him briefly on the phone a few times, arranging everything. And Celestino, in turn, had helped arranged everything else for him: found him an apartment, had loaded it down with all of Yuuri’s things he had shipped in a week before his arrival.

He owed him too much and he barely knew him, but the man was everything he had sounded like over the phone and every bit the person he looked like. He was charismatic and cheerful and it did wonders for Yuuri’s mood and his growing homesickness in the first few weeks. Culture shock, Celestino had called it, and Yuuri had thought himself beyond that, as much as he had traveled in his life, but this was different.

The first few months were a painful adjustment for him, and he skated nearly every day under Celestino’s guidance, practicing ideas for his coming season, which loomed closer and closer by the day.

And everyday Death was there, always, leaning against the rink as he watched Yuuri skate, but again he was never there when Yuuri turned to look. He was there, on occasion, in the second shadow he cast across the ice as he moved, in the lone shadow that moved by itself while Yuuri walked home. He was there in a rattle in the bathroom and all of his toiletries spread across the floor when he went to check on the noise. He was there in the cold breeze that blew through his bedroom though no window was open.

Celestino was patient with his increasing fatigue and paranoia and jumpiness, and Yuuri was thankful that the man didn’t pry and only chalked it up to culture shock. And he did have it, every time he ate food that was still foreign and strange, every time a passing car honked at someone, every time a stranger shoved passed him without a thought as he walked to the rink.

And maybe that passing stranger was Death. He could never tell and all eyes on him were Death. He knew it.

By the time it came to choose his music and begin his choreography, Celestino was almost concerned. They sat in a coffee shop, because his coach was always insisting on taking him around the city, but it was a mediocre cafe, at best, and Yuuri missed home all the more in the dim lighting and too strong smell of burning coffee.

“Did your last coach do your choreography?” Celestino asked, laptop open in front of him, casting a sickly glow across his face. The lighting of the cafe hardly helped.

Yuuri had barely thought of Minako in his time in the states so far, had missed her dearly but had pushed her from his mind as a way to cope with her absence in his life. But Celestino reminded him of her, with his overabundance of energy and passion for helping him. Yuuri was more and more thankful for him by the day.

“She always had final say,” he said at last. “But I usually had a hand in it, in the theme and the mood I wanted to portray. She liked to pick the music though.” But he was selecting his own music, this time, and it sat ready for Celestino to listen to and the man nodded and jotted something in his notebook. “I’d like to play a larger role in this season than I used to, if I can.”

Celestino smiled. “I’m glad,” he said. “You’re the skater to watch this season, everyone is saying. This is your time to make a statement that could define your career.” Yuuri hadn’t thought of it that way, and felt suddenly nervous for Celestino to hear his selections. But the man forged onwards, earbuds now in his ears, drowning out the awful noise of the coffee shop.

His smile turned to a frown quickly though and he jotted constant notes into his notebook and Yuuri fidgeted, the smell from the coffee in front of him turning his stomach. He’d barely touched it, but had ordered it anyway because he didn’t need to make Celestino worry more than he already was and the man had offered. He stared down at the ring it was leaving on the beat up table and focused only on that and not his coach’s face.

“What’s the theme?” Celestino suddenly asked, and Yuuri almost knocked over his coffee in surprise .

“Ahh, it’s  _ Despair _ ,” he told him, and Celestino furrowed his brow.

He’d made him more concerned all the same. “I can arrange for a therapist, if you need one,” he said, and Yuuri laughed.

“No,” he said. “I’m fine, really. But I want the challenge, and I think it—” He trailed off. Death's eyes were boring a hole in his back, and he was no doubt sitting at a table nearby. He didn’t look, though, ignored it as he had been ignoring it more and more often. The paranoia had faded into exhaustion and finally resignation. But how did he explain that to his coach? “The last few months have been hard,” Yuuri explained. “And I’m doing a lot better now, but I think it still feels fitting, now that I’m passed it. You said this will define my career, and I want to do something most other skaters don’t do.” Upbeat happy music was favored, more often than not, for the ease with which it made the choreography,

“Hmm,” Celestino murmured, looking over his notes, likely filled with ideas for jumps and what cues in the music were best fit for what. “Alright,” he said. “It’ll work, but it’s different and this will be challenging to skate to.”

Yuuri nodded and finally took a sip of his coffee. It was almost cold now, but his stomach was settling. “Good, that’s what I want.”

And Death watched him from the corner.

—

The short program would be the highlight of his career, Yuuri was certain, knew it the moment he began skating it: large sweeping motions that brought him almost dangerously closed to the rinks edge, but barely there, enough to show the skill in skating that fine line. With movements and slow gestures that embodied the theme of his season, that were erratic and frantic but somehow graceful all the same. The movements backwards were full of an almost harsh speed from the angry motion of the steps need to gain the momentum, hands reaching out as he did so, desperate and forlorn.

He’d put together the finer motions, the small touches himself, and Celestino had helped him incorporate the more technical aspects into his final vision. And it wasn’t quite there, even with the first event looming ever closer, but it would be there, Yuuri was certain.

And despite Celestino’s initial reservations about the music and the theme, he was more excited as every piece fell into the bigger picture. He understood, it seemed, what Yuuri was wanting to do. This was a challenge, the mark of the abrupt change in his life: becoming an adult, leaving his home, the uncertainty of where his career would go now. But for Yuuri, it was something else as well: the curse, the power the curse had over him breathed into life.

And Death watched most days, but Yuuri could only ever tell because of the weight of the iron. He never once caught him at the edge of the rink. But that was fine, he would come to understand the final message nonetheless.

The free skate came together with a similar passion, with longer, slower movements, despair warping into sorrow. The music was carefully chosen,  _ Sonata Number 14, in C Sharp Minor _ , performed on piano, the essence of sorrow played across the saddest of keys.  _ Moonlight Sonata _ , haunting and beautiful. It lacked the passion free skates usually had, lacked the growing noise, but Yuuri made it his own, found it all the more alluring a piece given that  _ he _ had to sing life into the music, rather than vice versa. The missing cues, the absence of strength, all of it fell on his shoulders to embody.

And he would, he most definitely would.

—

Two months before the first event, the Cup of China, Yuuri woke from a dead sleep to a familiar cold. He bolted upright, fumbling with his glasses and sliding them on, fingerprints now smattered across the lenses. Death sat at the end of his bed, arms splayed out behind him as he leaned back, hands placed close to Yuuri’s legs. And Death looked positively delighted, a playful smile dancing across his face.

“You know,” he began, pushing himself from his slouch. “I’m quite flattered. You made your program for  _ me _ ,” and no, Yuuri thought, not for him,  _ because _ of him. There was barely a fine line of difference, but it was there. “I’m moved.” Yuuri shook his head. Could Death even  _ be _ moved, he didn’t know and he hardly cared.

“Why are you always there?” Yuuri asked and the silence in the room was deafening, the dark corners darker, a blanket of a void brought down onto his room by Death. “When I skate, you’re always there.” Always,  _ always _ , and it drove him mad, that Death sought so hard to intrude on something he loved so much. Maybe that was why he moved with such anger across the ice, because Death was there and he would never let him take what he loved from him.

Death considered him for a long moment, so long Yuuri almost forgot what the question was that he had asked to begin with. “You skate beautifully,” Death explained at last. “I enjoy watching you.”

“Just as you enjoy the little moments in life, right?” Yuuri countered, and he was angry, hands curled into the sheets around him. Was this what it had become between them? A taunting, teasing game. “You’re mocking me again, why? Isn’t it enough you’re always there, tormenting me?”

He stood, an elegant motion that was every bit of grace that Yuuri never would have thought the essence of Death capable of before he had finally met him. “I am capable of feeling everything you can. I can feel joy, too, and sorrow.” And despair, he said with his eyes, but Yuuri didn’t believe it.

“You’re lying!” Yuuri shouted to the darkness, his entire body shaking. “You’re  _ lying _ !”

Death didn’t react to his anger, only stood watching him, a hand hovering above his leg, sweeping along as if in a caress. It was intimate and sad, but Death couldn’t touch him, and Yuuri only felt his heart stutter in his chest with relief. “I look forward to seeing you perform at the Grand Prix Final this year,” he murmured, and then he was gone, lost to the darkness he’d brought upon the room.

And the darkness gradually lifted, but Yuuri didn’t sleep again that night.

—

He was fell the next day, exhautsed, Death’s eyes suddenly, noticeably absent. That upset him more than anything. Had he gotten through to him, had he finally given him reprieve when Yuuri least wanted it? But Death deserved to see his program, and so Yuuri was angry.

He was running through the framework of his program again, the spirit of the free skate still eluding him, still only motions lacking the life he’d hope to weave into it. But his jumps were almost where they needed to be, because he had been practicing again and again to master jumps he’d once stumbled more often than not. So he didn’t think to jump the quad he always performed at this point of the routine, and when he did he caught a sliver of gray out of the corner of his eye and he forgot himself, continued the rotation but forgot the landing and he came down hard across the ice and slid into the dasher board, swearing in his own language as he thudded against it.

Celestino was on the ice, but Yuuri didn’t notice. He was looking to where he’d caught the flash of gray, and it wasn’t Death. It was only a jacket someone had hung by the door to the locker rooms. It was only a jacket, and he cursed himself all the more for his carelessness.

That was how he would die, eventually, through carelessness, and he swallowed down tears as Celestino helped him to his feet, stumbling to return the blades back onto the ice. “I’m fine” he whispered. “Just bruised.” Bruised up bad, and sore. He would feel it for a month, he was certain.

Celestino gave him a worried look, and when had he suddenly started to become worried for him again? Yuuri couldn’t remember the last time he had through to notice. “Alright,” his coach told him. “But take tomorrow off. And be careful, you need to be in top shape for the Cup of China.” Two months, that was in only two months.

And in those final two months, Death never showed himself, and his necklace was more painful without the heat in it.

—

The Cup of China came on fast, and Yuuri thought  _ certainly he will come now, to watch _ , but he didn’t. His short program was as he had pictured it, but the feeling wasn’t there. He only captured anxiety where he had hoped to capture despair. And as he lay in bed that night, struggling to sleep, he thought, s _ urely Death will come now _ to taunt him before the free skate the next day.

And again he didn’t.

He took silver, because he’d flubbed a quad into a triple and landed the next quad on shaky feet. It was a disappointing silver.

And he took Gold at the next Cup because he had swapped the quad he had fumbled for one he had more confidence in, and though it hurt him on the overall technical score he made up for that by landing it flawlessly. But it lacked passion, as before. The entirety of so many months work slipping through his fingers.

And Death never showed himself.

The Final was in Beijing, and Yuuri came into it with an anger and a frustration that drove him forward. Everything would be perfect this time, just to spite Death, who hadn’t been there even once though he had thought to visit him to proclaim his enjoyment of his routines. If Death wanted it to be a game, then he would play the game.

He was second for the short program, and he skated out onto the ice to wild applause. He was the skater to watch this year, Celestino had told him. And this was the moment that would define him as a skater, set him apart from all others. But he was surprised at the outpouring of support, all the same. He had only take bronze the year before. But the pounding in his ears quickly drowned out the noise as he did a few warm up laps, building speed, testing his skates, learning the ice.

The announcer, even, was a distant hum lost to the beat of his heart as he finally fell into place: his arms spread out slightly, head and eyes cast downward, knee bent slightly to prepare for that first push forward. He had chosen to wear black, the shade of inky black that swallowed up all light, and it hung loose and billowy about his arms, his chest, his hips, tapering down into a more fitted leg, to allow for less interference as he performed. It looked almost torn and wispy as he lowered his head and waited for the music to begin; It was a rendition of everything Death was  _ supposed _ to be, what people envisioned at the very mention of it, and nothing at all like how he really was. But he knew the truth, Death was a playful spector, with silver hair and soft eyes that lured you in and tempted you and made you let your guard down. He was beautiful and strange and Yuuri hated him.

The music started loud, a shrill of piano that brought the entire arena into silence, the rougher keys dense and heavy and angry, the kind of music one would expect from a horror movie, and it  _ was _ music from a horror movie, in a sense, where a man became death and slaughtered his way through the streets of London.  _ The Overture of Sweeney Todd _ , and Yuuri still remembered how priceless Celestino’s face had been when he’d first heard it.

He moved fast from the very first cue, kicking backwards and sweeping around, as if running from someone, and he spun with arms outstretched as if falling into an abyss. And then at once he changed, lurching forward, arms forward and reaching and he knelt towards the ice, one leg bent tight, the other outstretched, flying across the ice until the time when he swept upright once more, coming around in a spread eagle, spinning softer now that the music had mellowed out from its initial intensity.

And that slowdown was the cue for the more technical aspects to begin and he sped forward and into his first jump, moving from it into his first spin, leg raised higher and higher until at last his hand was pressed against the blade of his skates and he was moving almost alarmingly fast for a spin of its type but he moved out of it with the same grace as was expected for it and then into the bulk of the rest of the jumps as the music reached its crescendo: a sharp whistle of sound, screeching and haunting.

With every jump the iron chains about his neck lifted from his chest. He’d worn three of them, had gone through a lot of trouble to find them, and they hung in a cascade down his chest, incorporated into his costume. And it was a message to Death: try and get me because you can’t, you never, ever can. And it was in that moment, as he landed his second to last jump, chains rattling loud, the ragged edges of his costume fluttering, that he realized the one thing his program had been missing.

_ He _ was Death now, was everything he had envisioned Death to be before the first time he had seen him. He was the despair that Death had breathed into him: not the despair he felt but the embodiment of it. And it wasn’t Death doing this to him, it was him doing it to himself.

And his last quad was now everything it was supposed to be, it was  _ alive _ .

He drew to a stop, sharp, spinning fast, leg out and then raising higher and higher until he gripped his skate, and then he fell from it, a jerky intentional movement that pulled him into the finale of the song, another spin, but lower, nearly at the ground, crouched. And the end was abrupt, arms outstretched as he lifted himself up, reaching, where before they had been almost scrambling. This was him embracing it all, this was him accepting his curse

And Death was there, he realized belatedly as he finally fell from the pose, legs wobbly as he skated a final lap around the rink to excited applause, the announcer loud and energetic as he recounted the program. Death was  _ there _ , standing where the coaches stood, and he had a gloved hand pressed over his mouth to hide a smile, eyes dancing, and he had been there the entire time Yuuri realized as he finally staggered from the rink. He had been watching, as he had promised. And he looked alive where he stood, one hand curled around the top of the dasher board. Alive as insofar as the embodiment of Death could be, and Yuuri remembered their exchange from the beach, and it felt like it had been forever ago, now.

_ you don’t have a life, not like I have a life _

_ then why aren’t you enjoying it? _

It all made sense now.

He took Gold when the Final was said and done, and Death was there as well, clapping with everyone else as the medal was placed around his neck. Maybe Yuuri had been wrong, maybe he really did enjoy watching him skate.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The routine Yuuri does for his Short Program was pulled from [this one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NeSjyvepFI) If you carefully line up the music to it, it fits realllly well until just about the end. And for some reason I always choose female skaters when looking for inspiration for Yuuri's routines. Oh well.
> 
> By now it my be a bit more clear: This story will follow Yuuri and his curse year by year until the story eventually reaches its culmination, which has already been mostly written and planned. You're all in for a treat. So each chapter will have a musical accompaniment and typically a program reference, because I put wayyy too much detail into describing the choreography.
> 
> If you enjoyed this please Comment or leave Kudos. It genuinely means the world to me! I read each and every one of them, even if I don't always respond.


	3. Year 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to go ahead and apologize for any spelling mistakes, etc, in this chapter. I don't actually have a beta reader or anything, so mistakes happen I guess. Music for this chapter can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-zu5V2wYY) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2PuGfRoAu4)

The year began differently than the one prior to it had. It was happier and cheerful, with good news rather than the lingering horror of what fate had in store for him.

(Death still lingered, but he was distant, now, and Yuuri had come to terms with it, for now)

Celestino called him barely a week into the new year, before the sun had even risen, and Yuuri answered the phone, groggy, and barely mumbled out a hello before the man was speaking excitedly into his ear. Yuuri held the phone away slightly, too tired for the energy of his coach. “Yuuri!” Celestino said, “Check the ISU page,” and Yuuri yawned and slipped his glasses on and fumbled about for his laptop.

The glow from the screen, as he finally opened it, hurt his eyes and he squinted and managed to type the web address correctly after his third try. And then Yuuri just stared at it blankly once it loaded, tired and confused and a bit annoyed. “What am I supposed to be seeing?” he asked, scrolling idly down the page. English evaded him, as tired as he was, and he read the different headlines sluggishly and with some difficulty.

“Yuuri!” Celestino exclaimed again. How was he so awake? “The Japanese Skating Federation just announced their pick for Worlds,” and it took Yuuri too long a second to process what he had said. His mouse hovered over the headline, at last, and splashed beneath it was a photo of him from the Final, arms out to his sides, black cloth fluttering around him. 

He nearly dropped his phone.

“I’m going to Worlds,” he whispered, but he whispered it to the darkness around him more than he whispered it to his coach. Celestino just happened to be on the other end. “I’m— I’m going to  _ Worlds! _ ”

—

He was still tired when he finally pulled himself out of bed, but now he was riding a wave of excitement and adrenaline. He texted everyone he knew, though most everyone wouldn’t be awake yet, and then he started on his day. Celestino wanted to meet at the rink early, to discuss the news in more detail.

He’d have to modify his routine from the prior season, make it grander and cater it to the expectations for an international event. And he needed to resume more rigorous practice, which usually took a backseat to recuperation after the Grand Pri.

Yuuri took a long shower, mind racing, mind  _ waking up _ , and by the time he stepped out and wrapped a towel around his waist the bathroom was heavy with steam, the mirror fogged over. And scrawled across it, in neat, flowy text was  _ Congratulations _ and he stared at it for a long while, hair dripping everywhere, feet slippery on the tile.

Death had been barely there since the Final, had watched but never showed himself, even as he sometimes skated. This was the first sign of him in nearly a month, the first real reminder of his curse. He reached up and ran a finger across the links of the necklace and it was cold.

Before the fog could fade away Yuuri stepped over, hesitant, and finally scrawled  _ Thanks _ back.

And his necklace burned.

—

His choreography for Worlds was a reworking of the prior year’s theme, one continuous story reaching its fruition on the rink as the world watched.

Over the course of the next four months he upped the difficulty gradually, altered the step sequences, the order of the jumps, the entire flow of the program, rebuilding it from scratch, and then Worlds came upon them fast. Death was there, now, every step of the way, always there at the edge of the rink and still there when Yuuri turned to look. He always made eye contact and he always offered a smile and it unnerved Yuuri worse than if he had been gone every time he glanced that way.

He wished, sometimes, that he wasn’t so obviously there, that things could return to how they were when Death’s gaze had been nothing more than a heavy paranoia building within him. He knew how to cope with that, but this he couldn’t quite come to terms with. Death not just there, but there to watch him skate. But he only shivered every time he saw the gaze on and him and powered through his routine, again and again until it was perfect.

And then he was at Worlds, skating it again as perfectly as before, dancing death across the ice while his fate hung over him, watching. It was alright, now. It was alright, and he understood that, but he still didn’t understood  _ why _ Death enjoyed watching him.

He missed gold by the narrowest margin, but a silver medal was an upset anyway and where the world had been watching before it was now  _ attentive _ . And Death was watching, as attentive as always.

—

And that began a long string of visits: Death was sitting in the chair at his desk as Yuuri woke in the morning, smiling, handing him his books, and Yuuri grumbled at him and refused to talk, because he wasn’t an early riser, he was  _ tired _ and the sheer ridiculousness of the situation was too much to wrap his head around, regardless of how awake or not he was. And he was there, sometimes, as Yuuri pattered about the kitchen, always attempting idle chatter and Yuuri always deflecting it. Yuuri ignored it, always.

Then eventually it became sticky notes on his desk.  _ You have a test next week! _ one said, and Yuuri rolled his eyes and tore it up. And another, with feeble attempts to start a conversation,  _ Why don’t you get out more? You should find a girlfriend! _ And that one Yuuri crumpled angrily.

And then another, with a song scrawled across it, in the same neat writing as on all the others, as had been on his bathroom mirror. Yuuri had been up half the night listening through playlists, searching for music for the coming season, and he’d come up empty and frustrated. But one of the songs he’d lingered on was written on the note, followed by a question mark, and  _ that one _ Yuuri gave some consideration before finally reaching up and sticking it to the wall above his desk.

—

Celestino called him off the rink barely a month later, and he was already weeks behind on picking a theme, on selecting his music, but he’d been practicing none the less, becoming more comfortable with different sequences. Yuuri skated over to the edge of the rink and came to a fast stop, and Celestino was thrusting his phone at him before he could even catch his bearings.

Yuuri frowned, looking down at it. “What is this?” he asked, and it was a headline, a picture of him at Worlds, mid spin, black billowing out around him. He skimmed it, confused.  _ Audiences, Judges wowed by Rising Star Yuuri Katsuki’s Haunting Performances _ the headline read beneath it, in the tagline,  _ Is more on the way? _ And Yuuri shot Celestino another frown.

“You’ve officially been typecast,” Celestino told him, half joking, and Yuuri handed the man his phone back, giving him a blank look. “Akk, it means you’re—” He hesitated, searching for the words. “I guess it means this defines you now, they expect more performances like this one.”

“Oh,” he said, biting his lip. “That’s my thing now, I suppose.”

Celestino nodded. “It doesn’t  _ have _ to be,” his coach told him. “But your performance was remarkable, inspired, and they want more of it.”

Yuuri’s frowned deepened, considering it. He had been inspired when he’d come up with the previous theme, but now he struggled to find inspiration, to give a direction to the loose string of ideas for the season he’d been compiling in his head. But the audiences, the judges, the world watching him, they all loved what he had done, and they were waiting for more. And he had nothing to give them, yet.

Celestino saw the look on his face and hurried to console him. “Don’t feel  _ obligated _ ,” he said. “You should skate what you want. If you’re having trouble I can help. That’s what I’m here for.”

But Yuuri didn’t want help, he wanted to find his theme in the manner it had come to him the year before. It needed to be inspired, it needed to embody him.

It took him almost too long to pick it, though. Nothing resonated with him the way he wanted it to, as much as he tried to find something, and all of the music he had been considering before now only felt deader and flatter. Not like he had desired it to be before, but dreary in a way as to make it unremarkable.

Death still hung about him and, with the spectre looming over him, he only became all the more frustrated, constantly distracted by his presence. He would bomb the coming season at this rate, certainly, but it didn’t manifest as anxiety as it usually did, but instead as a growing anger furling itself deep into him, winding itself up.

And then Death came to him one night, as he did, and Yuuri was still awake, sitting up in his bed, eyes on his laptop. And as always, he did not see Death arrive so much as he  _ felt _ it, a cold chill falling over him and the he was  _ there _ lingering in his periphery, seated in the chair at his desk.

Yuuri had practice early the next morning, and exams barely more than a week away and he was in no mood. “Go away,” he snapped. “It’s  _ late _ .”

Death only smiled and leaned closer. “Have you made any progress on your programs?” he asked, ignoring what Yuuri had said. He often did that, put himself and what he wanted to talk about above Yuuri’s feelings, just as he watched when Yuuri would rather he not be there. He’d come to accept that Death was just like that.

Yuuri sighed and gave up one what he had been doing, snapping his laptop closed. “Why are you doing this?” he asked after a moment. He hadn’t minded the constant flitting about, the sticky notes, even the coffee that had often been ready and waiting for him as he left in the morning. All of it had made his lonely apartment feel less lonely, as loathe as he was to admit it, but the night time visits, the  _ smiles _ , the attempts at conversation that Yuuri continued to refuse to reciprocate. It all spelled out something more, something more dire. It was all just a facade, to push down his walls, to make him more comfortable so he would let down his guard and Death could snatch him. “Why do you keep trying to talk to me?”

Death almost looked offended. “I want to get to know you, obviously,” he said simply. Obviously, only it wasn’t so obvious that was what he wanted. It was more complicated than that, there was more to it than that and Yuuri wasn’t fooled for a second.

“Why would you want to?” he asked quietly. “Isn’t it enough that you’re going to kill me, eventually?”

Death frowned and moved, leaning back into the chair. “I won’t kill you,” he said. “I’ll just make you dead. There’s a big difference there.”

Yuuri curled his hands into fists, taking a deep, slow breath. The rage that had been building inside him for the better part of a month was threatening to burst through. He thought he might overflow with it and he longed to throw something, anything, but all he had near him was his phone and his laptop and he had enough clarity to know he couldn’t really afford to replace either of them. “Will it make it easier?” he asked. “When the time comes, does it make it easier, to  _ make me dead? _ ” Death remained silent and stared at him with a rare frown, hair falling into his face. “I know this is a game to you,” Yuuri continued. “But this is my life, it isn’t a game to me!”

And again Death didn’t speak, though he stood, at last, watching him with eyes that were cold and angry for the first time since Yuuri had ever seen him. “I’ll come for you eventually,” he said at last, his voice barely more than a murmur. “But now, getting to know you now won’t make that easier.”

Then he was gone.

—

“Anger,” Yuuri told Celestino the next morning, when he arrived for practice. “I want my theme to be  _ anger _ .” He was tired, eyes heavy, had sat up the rest of the night selecting his music, sketching the paths he would take across the ice. Already he could feel it coming together, the inspiration he had been struggling to find suddenly there. “I have the music. I know what I want to do.”

Celestino looked as tired as Yuuri felt, coffee in his hands, and he obviously startled by Yuuri’s enthusiasm so early. “Anger,” he repeated, turning the word over in his mouth slowly. Yuuri could tell he was debating it.

“It’ll go well with the theme from last year, another haunting performance, as is expected of me now, right?” Yuuri pushed and he had no doubts that the man would agree once he saw what he had put together.

“Alright,” Celestino said at last, “Let’s hear the music. But if you think you’re typecast already, this will cement that, definitely,” he told Yuuri and Yuuri grinned. He didn’t mind it so much. His life was haunted by Death, by the curse his family bore, and it felt good, to skate the anger out of him, to express it to a world he couldn’t quite explain it to.

It felt like winning.

—

He wore red: A simple top blending softly into trousers, dark red, the color of blood, with a criss cross of black spilling around the front, the wrapped neck flared. It was a sharp contrast to the outfits of the year prior, but it was haunting all the same. It was anger, draped across his skin.

He skated to  _ Montagues and Capulets _ for his short program, and it was thrilling and heavy with the beat of a deep horn and it set his blood to boiling as he moved. He skated fire into the ice and each spin was long and fast and each turn, every transition from backwards to forwards and vice versa, was sharp and quick and powerful. He was anger, he was rage and heat, and there was quad after quad after quad until he thought his heart would burst from his chest.

He had practiced for months to acquire the stamina he needed for such a performance and even Celestino had seemed wary of the intensity of it, the rapid speed he had wanted to perform it at. But his coach hadn’t doubted him when he insisted he could pull it off, and he did without a flaw or a single hiccup when he finally came to Finals.

The first note of the music stunned the crowd to silence and Yuuri knew everyone was watching him now, more so than the year prior when h’d been a bronze winner with  _ maybe _ a shot at taking silver. But now he had ranked internationally and now they all sat on the edge of their seats. Even Celestino looked excited, hands curled tight around the rink’s edge, eyes wide.

His starting pose was bent half over, arms crossed in front of him. More difficult, with more finesse required to move from it, but with the first note of the music he brought it to life, springing forward and into the beginning: a minor step sequence that sent him stuttering across the ice with every, frustrated emotion he had felt in the last six months, building into its peak, his  _ anger _ as he had approached the Finals, a jump. And that was the entire program, twist after turn after twist, fire across ice, burning rage pouring from his skates.

And when, at last, he drew to a stop, arms thrown out to either side, hands curled into fists, chest heaving from the effort of the program, he thought he might collapse but he didn’t. Death was watching, as expected. It was for him and Yuuri would have been angrier if he hadn’t shown.

He locked eyes with him in that final moment and Death  _ grinned. _ And Yuuri wished, in that moment, that he could touch him because surely he would hurt him if he could. That was how he felt in that moment, as he slid from the ice and stumbled over to the kiss and cry for his results.

He was second, so it wouldn’t mean too much, not yet. Not until the last competitor went.

The free skate was to  _ Requiem in D Minor _ , and for it he wore something more formal: black, with a long jacket draped over all of it, soft and red and heavily embroidered to resemble flowers. Delicate but loud at the same time, a simmering anger where the short skate had been loud and robust rage. A representation of the music.

The movements were softer, more elegant, like dancing a duet meant for two but doing so alone, having cast away the partner,  _ betrayed _ . The speed was slower and more subtle, with low dips during his slides across the ice, spins that lowered slowly into squat spins, jumps that were graceful rather than jarring, and landings that were soft and delicate.

And when he finished, he let it go. He looked at Death where he stood next to Celestino, unseen, and his chest heaved and his body trembled and he didn’t care anymore. Death could do whatever he liked. But he would _ win _ , if that’s the game he wanted to play.  _ This _ felt like winning, standing on the ice, flowers landing all around him, and Death watched him, hands in his pockets, an indecipherable expression etched into his sharp face.

He won Gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't base his skating here on any routines as I did prior chapters. I can only sync so many programs to music, but I did a base choreography in my head, so I hope it translates well. As always, I love comments and kudos :)


	4. Year 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter we start to get answers. Have fun. Music for this chapter can be found [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM)
> 
> Again, sorry for any spelling errors. Not proofread other than by myself, like a million times.
> 
> (also music for the climax of this story has been chosen and you are in for a treat, ohboy ohboy!)

The year began with skating and it ended with skating.

Death came to him two weeks into January, while he was skating alone. He was on rink time, but Celestino was ill and so he practiced alone. He liked it, did it often enough: just him, the ice, the chill of a winter’s evening. Death always felt that way when he appeared, cold like winter, frigid like— Like death. He saw him at the edge of the rink and Yuuri skated over, drawing to a slow stop, curling cold hands over the edge.

Death stood as he often did, posture straight, gloved hands in his pockets. Yuuri wondered why he so often appeared in nice clothes as he did, when he had no need. He could be there in black robes with a scythe and he would be no less threatening in Yuuri’s eyes than he was to him now.

“Hello,” Yuuri said, and his breath fogged the air. He wondered how long Death had been standing there, watching, for it to now be so cold.

He smiled, dropping a hand down barely an inch from Yuuri’s own, mimicking the grip he had on the dasher board. It was unnervingly intimate. “Hello,” he responded. His own breath fogged the air as well. “Congratulations. You’re going to Worlds again.”

Yuuri tightened his grip, looking away. He had only just received the news himself. His own family didn’t even know yet. But of course Death knew.

“And you're speaking with me again, that's a nice change as well.” He smiled, flashing white teeth, and leaned in closer. Yuuri fought back the urge to pull away. He could be angry, he could be anxious, he could be terrified but he wouldn't show fear any more. Death only had as much power over him as he allowed him to have.

Yuuri hadn’t spoken to him since their fight nearly six months earlier. Yuuri had ignored every attempt, every quip from him, until he had disappeared all together until the Grand Prix. And it had been not quite nice but it had been a relief.

But he had missed it a bit. And he had had a lot of time to dwell on what he really wanted to say to Death, when he finally appeared again.

“If I talk to you, will you answer a question for me?” He asked softly, forcing himself to meet Death’s eyes again. They were curious and they danced alive in a way he wasn't. 

“Ask away,” he said.

“Why are we cursed? My family I mean?”

Death drew away from him, stepping back. Eyes that had been playful only a moment before were now cold and serious. And sad, Yuuri thought. He looked sad. “That’s not a question I’m going to answer,” he said after a moment, and Yuuri tightened his grip on the rinks edge. Death’s was now noticeably absent next to his. “I’m sorry.” The apology surprised him but he still bristled at the answer.

But he had spent so much time being angry and frustrated and he was exhausted. He took a long, deep breath, calming himself. “Why,” he said at last, once he trusted his own voice. “Is it really so much to ask? For answers?”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, but it was a whisper this time. It sounded like a distant song on a breeze, his voice faint and wispy and— He sounded sad and Yuuri’s heart hurt for him though he knew it shouldn’t. “I won’t tell you.”

“Please,” Yuuri pleaded. It was his turn to lean forward, into  _ his _ space. “I deserve to know! After— After everything my family has had to suffer through, why can’t we at least know  _ why _ . What did we do to deserve this?”

Death sighed and lifted his gaze to the ceiling, to the haphazard beams running across it. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m so sorry, Yuuri. But I won’t tell you.” He looked down and there were tears there, hanging wet across his lashes. It surprised Yuuri and he let go of the edge of the rink and slowly he drifted backwards, away from him.

He didn’t beg more, didn’t see it worth demeaning himself further in front of the one whose hands he would eventually die to. It wasn’t worth it. “Go away then,” he said softly and Death didn’t budge.

“Has it ever occurred to you, Yuuri, that we are both cursed?” Yuuri blinked and looked to where he had been standing but he was gone. Yuuri’s heart screamed and he screamed, skating almost into the edge of the rink, grip white knuckled within it as he cried out into the darkness.

“What do you mean? What do you mean!?”

He deserved to know. He deserved to  _ know _ .

—

He didn’t see him again until Worlds, and that was the pattern. Long patches of time without him and then too much time with him in the gaps between. It was tiring and exhausting and Yuuri was anxious more often in the times between, waiting for him to appear, wondering if he would be there when he opened his eyes or rounded a corner or performed a complicated jump.

But Worlds came and he took Gold and Death wasn’t there watching for the very first time.

And he sat at the conference, later, tired and exhausted, his track suit thrown haphazardly over his outfit, because he’d had barely enough time to do that much between being ushered out onto the podium and then from there to where he was now, a sea of reporters before him. And all of their questions were for him because he’d placed first and it was nerve wracking and he curled his fingers into the bottom edge of his jacket, fidgeting away the nervousness. So many of the questions were about his programs, his inspiration, what drew him to such somber themes.

“I think,” he said at last, voice stuttery and awkward through the mic, and had his accent always been so thick? “I think there is inspiration to be drawn from the less beautiful things in this world. But I think they, too, can be made beautiful.”

On the sidelines, Celestino nodded him through it all, and in the audience, Death was finally watching.

He came to him later, as he was packing to leave. Yuuri was still tired, legs rubbery, chest tight, moving slow because there was no hurry, his flight left early the next morning and he was packing for packings sake, for something to fill the idle time.

He turned and started when he saw Death, the shirt he had been holding dropping to a crumpled heap on the floor. Death was there, sitting on the bed, legs crossed. And he was silent, eyes in the ceiling, head tilted back.

“You didn’t come,” Yuuri said to the silence. He was cold and he shivered, stopping to pick up the shirt he’d dropped. He wrung his hands around the cloth, twisting it in his hands. “You always watch me skate.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, in much the same way as he had said it before. “I’m sorry.” But there was no explanation, nothing but the deep crease of his eyes, the sharp line around his mouth, sorrow and sadness and horror written across his face. Yuuri wondered why, after so many cheeky smiles and light hearted attempts at conversation.

“I thought you enjoyed watching me skate,” Yuuri said and he thought it might alleviate the mood of the room but it didn’t. It came out bitter and Death looked at him and his eyes were empty. There was no response so Yuuri said instead, “What did you mean before, when you said we’re both cursed?”

Death considered him for a long moment. “Your Great Grandmother was a doctor,” he said at last, ignoring the question. Yuuri’s breath froze in his throat and, almost frantic, he reached up and tugged at his necklace. It held fast and only burned a bit against his fingers. He wasn’t certain if the burn had lessened over time or if he had become so accustomed to it he no longer felt the pain. “You remind me of her.”

Yuuri bit his lip, free hand fisted around the fabric of the forgotten shirt he’d dropped before. “Why would you—” He swallowed, words failing him. “ _ How _ could you— How could you talk to me about—”

Death cut him off, ignoring his words. “Her name was Kei.” Yuuri opened his mouth, angry, the words that had failed him before now coming to him too quickly. He shook. And Death didn’t give him the chance to speak again. “She was brilliant and she refused her fate. She traveled all over, saw the whole world. And nothing stood in her way. Not even me. She feared me least of all.” Death reached up and caught the collar of his shirt between slender fingers, fidgeting as Yuuri did, but it was a gesture unbefitting him. It made him appear human, as with everything else he did.

Yuuri hated that about him, how human he was. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked softly, burying down his anger.

Death met his eyes. “She lived a long life,” he whispered. “And she  _ lived _ .”

She lived. She lived, and Yuuri found himself mimicking the words silently, turning them over in his mouth. She lived, she—

“You remind me of her,” Death continued but Yuuri ignored him.

“What do you mean,” he asked. “What do you mean she lived? Did you not—”

Death sighed and stood, jacket sweeping around him. He was tall. Yuuri had never before realized how tall he was. “I did,” he said. “I took her, as I took all of you, but—” He looked unhappy and his eyes were damp with tears. “She enjoyed my presence. She found it a comfort, to have me around. And she talked with me often. I dare say she liked me.” There was a cold pause for the briefest of moments and Yuuri didn’t miss it. “She understood. She  _ knew _ .” Knew what, he didn’t say, but it didn’t matter. “And she welcomed me.”

Yuuri bit his lip, legs wobbly and Death stepped over him until they were inches apart. It was as it was before, at the rink earlier that year, but now there was no dasher board between them. It was only them and the cold air between them.

“You remind me of her,” Death said again. “You don’t run from me and you don’t fear me.”

“How old was she?” Yuuri asked. “How old was she when you took her away too?”

Death stepped back and Yuuri released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “She knew it had to happen one day,” he said. “She knew it had to be by my hand. And eventually she fell ill.” Yuuri swallowed down tears, hands shaking. He suddenly didn’t want to know anymore. “She knew she was ill and she knew she would suffer before she finally died from it.” Death reached out to him, as if asking for his hand. Yuuri didn’t budge. “So she called for me and I—”

“How old was she,” Yuuri asked again, cutting him off. Death frowned and dropped his hand back down to his side.

“She was in her fifties.”

They stood there in silence for a long time, until Yuuri’s tears finally came and he shook, fighting to keep from sobbing. “Why would you tell me this?”

“Yuuri,” Death whispered and Yuuri wanted to strike him for using his name as if he hadn’t just told him about his long dead great grandmother. “ _ Yuuri _ ,” he said again and Yuuri finally looked up and met his eyes. “Not one of you, since the beginning, have ever died a natural death.”

“I know,” Yuuri said.

“But she lived a long life. She lived longer than any of you.” Death stepped closer again and Yuuri stepped back, away from him, mirroring him motion for motion. “Do you know why?”

The words seemed to draw Yuuri out of his stupor and he blinked away the tears and stepped towards him, controlling the conversation again. “Because you— Because you  _ liked _ her?”

“No,” Death said. “Because fear makes people careless. And she never feared me.”

And his sister whispered in his ear  _ Don’t be careless _ and his heart pounded loud enough in his ears to drown out all other noise but those words, again and again. “Why?” he said. “Why do you do this to us?”

Death sighed and turned his back to him. “I won’t tell you,” he said.

“Did she know though? My great grandmother?”

Death cast him a quick look over his shoulder. “She did know, yes.” And then he was gone in the wisp of a cold breeze.

Yuuri hated him.

—

The summer came on too fast, and with it the lingering anxiety of his last conversation with Death, with all the words left unsaid and the questions he still had that might never be answered. And the story of his great grandmother, who had sounded happy and alive but was so very dead, now.

It didn’t make it any easier.

Death still hung about, often watched him skate and gave him tired smiles when they locked eyes, but he only rarely ever showed up to talk. And when he did he only stayed long enough for Yuuri to start asking the questions that he refused to answer. And then he always left and Yuuri was always angrier and sadder and more frustrated.

And he missed him in the times between, as horrible as it felt to admit it.

He called his sister, in the first week of summer, while he was still struggling for ideas for his coming season. She sounded tired on the other end of the line and he knew it was early there. “Dad’s things?” she said, and he could hear her moving the phone from one ear to the other.

“Yeah, mom once said there was a box—”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s in the attic, I think,” she was muffled, now, no doubt a cigarette between her lips. “I can check tonight. What’re you looking for?”

Yuuri sighed, curling the iron chain around one finger. It was cold. “Just— Do you know if he had anything on the family history or, or, I don’t know. Books, or journals, or—” He trailed off, hesitant. He didn’t really know what he was looking for anymore than Mari did but something ate at him and he was certain he would find it there.

She sounded exasperated as she spoke. “Yuuri, is this about—”

“Yes,” he said, cutting her off. He didn’t want a lecture. “But— This is important, Mari.” He paused for effect. “Please? Just take a look and let me know if you find anything, anything at  _ all _ ?”

She huffed. “Fine, fine. I’ll take a look later and let you know what I find.”

Death was there when he hung up and he nearly dropped his phone. “What are you hoping she’ll find, Yuuri?” he asked quietly.

“Answers,” he said. “Answers you won’t give me.”

“You won’t like those answers, Yuuri,” he said and Yuuri was tired, was tired of being told what he would and wouldn’t like.

“I can decide that for myself,” he whispered.

Mari got back to him the next morning and he was somehow awake enough to answer the phone and mangle his way through a conversation. There was a lot of stuff up there, she told him, boxes and boxes. Pictures, old books, albums and albums of family history. And relics: chains and chains and chains and irons and rings and circlets and carved stones. Mari told him she found things that had to have been up there forever and he bit his lip, considering. “What are you wanting me to find?” she asked at last, and she sounded almost choked. It was dusty, she had told him. Layers and layers of dust.

“Answers,” he whispered and she sounded sad in the sigh she gave him. “I just— I want to know  _ why _ .”

“Yuuri,” she said carefully. “No one knows, no one but him. All of that, it’s lost to time now.”

“But Mari— What if it isn’t? You said— You said there’s a lot of stuff up there, maybe there’s  _ something _ —”

Mari drew in a shuddering breath and Yuuri felt guilty, suddenly, and anxiety stirred within him. “Yuuri, when you’re back, you can look, alright? But I— I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I can’t.”  _ She didn’t fear me _ , Death had told him, and Yuuri didn’t fear him either but Mari did and the weight of it dragged her down. She was tired, as tired as he was.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Next time I’m at home.” And then a thought occurred to him. “Wait, but Mari— Since you’re up there. You said there were pictures and— and family history. Can you see if you can find someone for me?”

“Fine, fine,” she grumbled and he could hear the distant sound of a thud as she likely moved a box. “There’s a lot here, Yuuri. Who’re you looking for?”

“Great grandmother, a direct descendant.” Mari was quiet for a long moment and there was shuffling and a small cough from her. “Her name was Kei.”

Mari mumbled under her breath but there was concern. “Yuuri, where is this coming from. Have you— Have you been talking to  _ him _ ?” Her voice was tight and Yuuri tried to keep his breathing even, his anxiety down.

He wanted to tell her the truth, to tell her everything, but she wouldn’t understand. She had spent too long living the way she had, the truth would only hurt her all the more. And she was safe, and happier without the details.

“It doesn’t matter, Mari,” he told her. He  _ wanted _ to tell her, all of it, how often Death hung around him, how often they spoke, but he knew it would upset her. “Just, is there anything, anything at all?”

Again there was a long bout of silence and Yuuri thought for a moment she had hung up. “Okami Kei. There are some old photos with her name on the back— Jeez, these are from the 1880’s. I didn’t even know they had cameras back then.” Yuuri laughed. “But that’s it. There might be more, there are a lot of boxes up here, but I— I’m not digging through them for you. You bring your ass home and go through them yourself!”

“I’ll come home soon,” he said, but he knew he likely wouldn’t. He’d made promise after promise to visit and he rarely had. “Just— Text me a picture, alright?”

And the picture came a few minutes later, sepia toned and rough around the edges and poorly lit. But she stood, serene, dressed in a simple yet elegant kimono, hair swept tight to the back of her head. And she looked off into the distance as if looking at something just out of sight of the camera, something no one else could see.

Yuuri felt ill.

“She looks happy,” Celestino commented when he saw Yuuri looking down at the photo later, during a brief break from the ice. “Is she your grandmother?”

“Great grandmother,” Yuuri whispered but for the first time he looked at her expression and not just her face and there was a faint quirk to her lips, creases of a smile across her face. She did look happy, but it only made Yuuri sadder.

—

He was up late that night, phone tossed aside on his bed with her picture open on it, laptop on his lap, back to the wall his bed was against. He played the music out loud, searching for the right fit, because he’d had an idea for his program and he was suddenly worried the idea might leave him.

He looked up the moment Death arrived, expecting him, and Death sat beside him, long legs crossed, back against the wall. His eyes, though, were on the photograph on his phone, grainy and old and made worse by a digital screen. He reached for it but stopped at the last moment. “May I?” he asked and Yuuri nodded and he picked it up. It was the first real interaction with the world around him that Yuuri had seen from him and his eyes stayed glued to him while  _ his _ eyes stayed glued to the screen.

“You were there, weren’t you?” Yuuri said. “When they took that picture.”

Death nodded slowly and closed his eyes for a long moment before setting the phone aside. “That was so long ago,” he said and he sounded tired. He sounded so _ so _ tired.

“Do you miss her?” Yuuri asked and Death opened his eyes and met his.

“You have her spirit,” he said in lieu of an answer. “You are very much the way she was.”

Yuuri’s hands shook as he picked up his phone. It was cold to the touch, as if he had just pulled it from a freezer. “Is that why you do this to me? Is this why you watch me so often?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It isn’t fair to you.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair and it settled again about his shoulders, different than it had been before.

“It isn’t,” Yuuri said and Death shifted beside him on the bed and for a moment Yuuri through he would leave. He reached out and just barely stopped himself from catching him by the wrist. “No, you can stay.” Suddenly he didn’t mind. He minded less than he ever had before. “I was— I was working on my program, if you’re interested?”

Death settled back down beside him, eyes on the computer screen. “If you want to share it with me,” he said. “I’m always interested in your skating.” But not enough to have shown at Worlds but Yuuri bit his tongue. The time for that was passed, it was done. He could no longer hold onto the anger, the terror deep in his heart. Fear led to carelessness.

—

He showed Celestino the music the next morning, after a long night spent combing through selections with Death, who had sat quietly while Yuuri told him what he wanted to do, scribbled curved lines across a paper, played music ideas and pointed out the best parts for a jump or a spin.

And slowly it had come together in his head and the right music had come along.

And Celestino, of course, set to work with him right away. 

That filled the rest of the summer: practice, planning, and  _ Death _ , who was there almost always now. Things between them stayed rocky but steady and slowly they fell into a rhythm. When he was alone at the rink he walked him through the choreography, just the two of them, and when Celestino was there Death only watched. And slowly it all came together.

And once,  _ once _ , Yuuri was at the rink alone and Death stepped out onto the ice and Yuuri, startled, turned to see him moving towards him, skating, his skates golden, leaving a trail of ice and wispy cold behind them. “You can skate,” Yuuri murmured and Death laughed. It was lovely and loud and it spilled fog across the cold air.

“I can do many things, Yuuri,” he told him and then he  _ moved _ and Yuuri stood in the middle of the rink, transfixed, as he launched into the short program Yuuri had performed the year before last, when his theme had been  _ despair _ and his heart had been heavy and never in a million years had he thought he would take gold, and then another, and then another at Worlds.

Death danced across the ice, leaving a path of white behind him, and the music sang from the blades of his skates. And Yuuri felt something warm bloom within him, despite the chill.

And then other nights were filled with small talk and idle chatter and Netflix, until coming home and seeing Death waiting for him was almost normal, until the cold chill that hung about him no longer made him shiver, until he felt warm, instead.

And then the Grand Prix was upon them and Yuuri won gold, and then gold, and then he was at Finals, standing in the middle of the rink as he was announced for his Free Skate. Him, his theme, his music. Yuuri Katsuki,  _ Fear _ ,  _ Danse Macabre _ . Fear, he would embody fear upon the ice and he closed his eyes as the first note began, a low, energetic dance across an orchestra and he moved with the same energy, back and forth, in one direction and then quickly the next. And then he flung himself backwards, sliding across the rink, arms out and above, and then,  _ then _ , he launched into the program in full— a jump, a spin, a triple, a double, a spin. The highest complexity that he was allowed in every instance in which he was allowed it. A jump with every harsh, sorrowful drag across the violin, a sweeping, jagged motion between every technical.

He wore deep gray and it spread from his chest and down to the boots of his skates, fading, slowly, into dark gray and then darker gray and then black. And it tapered about his waist as a skirt might, bunched from the front to the back, where it spilled out around him, around to one side. And with every movement the entire outfit fluttered to life with a faint shimmer and he moved, dipped one way, then the next, as the music sped up, faster and faster until he thought his heart would explode from his chest. And every time he saw Death he found a renewed energy where his own was fading.

And then he was done, before he realized it, legs crossed, skates steady on the ice, arms wrapped about himself, flaring out as the small skirt did, his chest rising and falling too fast with his labored breathing. He was done and when he looked up Death was there, beside Celestino, unseen, but waiting for him all the same.

He won gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested, I based Yuuri's great grandmother off of the woman found [here. ](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/19th-century-women-medical-school_n_5093603.html)


	5. Year 4, Part 1

At some point he had gone from a careful tolerance to a comfort around Death. Yuuri didn’t realize when it happened, nor did he really understand  _ how _ it had happened, but it had happened and now he felt guilt alongside the newfound comfort, because that newfound comfort had been born from a desire to know the truth, to get Death to let his guard down in the hopes he might learn  _ why _ . And maybe Death knew that, but neither of them acknowledged it and so they coexisted, instead. 

And he was no closer to finding out  _ why  _ than he had been before.

Still, it felt like winning.

And the truth would come out, eventually. Yuuri made plans to go home, after Worlds, to visit his mother and his sister and Yuuko and Minako. And the attic full of old boxes his sister had mentioned. He would find what he was looking for there, he was certain. But that would come. His main focus, now, was preparing for Worlds.

Death watched him as he skated, as usual, and he was there in all the times between. No longer a nuisance but almost welcome. Whenever Death laughed he felt warm. And he laughed, as well, as they sat up into the night. Yuuri watched shows on Netflix and Death, bemused, watched with him, and it was weird, to sit in his bed with the abstract reality of his end and watch television shows like his mortality wasn’t staring him in the face. And they did other things too. They talked, often. What had previously been left behind as sticky notes were now conversation points.

His apartment felt full and his life felt abundant.

He was on top of the world, it felt like. Every time he touched the ice Death was there, watching, and it felt like breathing, it felt like flying. He had conquered Death, in some way, had come to control and to accept his fate, and he was one step closer to finding out the  _ truth _ . It felt like winning, every bit of it.

And then he lost.

He flubbed his very first jump during his first program at Worlds. His short program, which he had skated until he could do it in his sleep. But he flubbed, a fluke of bad luck, and it set all the rest of the program off kilter. Every jump after it was a struggle— quads became triples, a triple became a double.

He’d lost before, lost abysmally, before, so the feeling of seeing himself so far down the scoreboard wasn’t new. But it hurt, all the same.

He didn’t feel upset so much as he felt humiliated. Anxious. His chest tight and his heart beating too fast and a deep sickness settling itself in the pit of his stomach like he might vomit. And none of that was new, either, but it was soul shattering after so long without it. It reminded him he was only human, he was more than human. He was  _ flawed _ .

And that night, locked away in his hotel room, he didn’t cry because he was losing or because he had performed so poorly. He cried for what that loss did to him. He was angry and frustrated and anxious in a way that made it all the harder to pull himself together. And he’d had to keep himself put together to make it through the rest of the day and now there was nothing left but to let it all out.

He was on the floor, back to the door, face pressed into his knees, when he felt Death arrive, the cold chill of cessation creeping through the air. He wished he could cease, in that moment, and he lifted his head to stare at Death where he sat on the edge of the too nice bed of his hotel room. His eyes were on him but didn’t meet his own and Yuuri took a deep breath, composing himself. Death had been absent since the moment his score had been read and he had noticed. He was there now, perhaps to mock him. The unreasonable, rash part of Yuuri decided that, not the part that had come to know and enjoy his presence.

“I want to tell you a story,” Death said softly and Yuuri sat back and pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes to staunch any lingering tears. “Will you listen?”

Yuuri didn’t have anything better to say so he nodded, defeated. Every moment of the day had been  _ defeat _ , and even this one spelled defeat as well.

Death didn’t speak for a long while and the silence was filled with Yuuri’s ragged breathing, with the distant echo of wind beyond the windows of his room, the faint hum of a heating unit kicking on. “There was a man, once,” he said at last, “Who lived a very long time ago and he wanted to live forever. It was a popular desire at the time, and men like him died in their feverish pursuit of immortality. It was a sort of sweet irony, that the ones who desired most to outlast death drove themselves straight into his arms in the attempt.” His voice was raw as he spoke, choked with an emotion that surprised Yuuri. He had seen him happy and laughing and strangely human, but now his humanity felt real. He sounded sad and he sounded scared. “And this man didn’t care if it killed him. He traveled the world, driven by his obsession, and eventually he met someone who had the same desires, someone who dabbled in the occult and in those things that are dead in the world now.”

Yuuri dropped his hands to his sides. Death was now no longer looking at him but some distant point, eyes unfocused, gazing nowhere in particular but everywhere at the same time. He wasn’t watching Yuuri.

“And together, they worked to find a way to live forever, and the younger man had an idea. What if, instead of trying to live forever, they simply found a way to avoid Death, to refuse him when he came for them.” Yuuri trembled, watching him, and the tables were turned. It was him watching Death and Death laid bare for  _ him _ while  _ he _ watched. “And they succeeded. They repelled Death and it made him angry.” Death, though, didn’t look angry. He only looked defeated.

“What did he do?” Yuuri croaked out, curling his fingers against the sides of his legs. He was anxious and Death’s story filled him with dread. It was the truth. This was the truth he had wanted so badly. “Did he— Did he curse them?” Yuuri didn’t want to know the answer as much as he did want to know the answer. His chest hurt and he took a deep, ragged breath.

“He did,” Death whispered. “The older man, though, was punished, because it was by his hand that they had found the way. A punishment worse than a curse,” and Yuui reached up a shaking hand and caught his necklace. He felt the sudden urge to tear it off. It burned hot into his palm and it hurt but the hurt stayed his hand. “He, and everyone born from him, would die young and the only thing standing between them and their Death, when it came for them, would be the scarce blessings they had.” Death looked his way for the first time since their conversation had begun but his eyes didn’t fall on Yuuri but on the necklace clutched in his hands. “Iron, the hot spring the family had lived on for centuries. Small things, to give them false hope. And Death allowed it, because it made it a game.”

A game. It was all a game. Yuuri trembled and hot tears finally ran down his face. They had wronged Death, as his sister had said. And Death was angry with them. But now Death watched him with sad blue eyes. And something didn’t— Something was missing. “The other man—” Yuuri choked out. “What about the other man?”

Death smiled. “He got his wish,” he said. “He got to live forever. And forever was a curse.”

Yuuri felt his heart skip a beat. He lived forever, he—

“Who was he?” Yuuri asked. “What was his name?”

Death stood and finally,  _ finally _ met his eyes and Yuuri started, surprised. They were damp with their own tears. “My name was Viktor,” he told him and Yuuri blinked, yanked so quickly from his own anguish and crying and anxiety. “We all lose, Yuuri.” And Yuuri scrambled to his feet, towards Death, no— Towards  _ Viktor _ , “We all lose.” Yuuri didn’t reach him. A moment before his hand made contact, curled to grasp his wrist, it was gone. He was gone, and Yuuri was left alone with only his tears and his anxiety and his necklace.

—

He took to the ice the next day after a sleepless night, wobbly and tired and anxious. Celestino gave him worried look after worried look but he let them roll off of him. The look that would have shaken him the most was no longer there and all else was second.

The judges, the audience, his worried coach. It was all second, and he took a deep breath as he took his pose and waited for the music to start. And then it did start and he moved, sweeping forward across the ice in time with the music, heart thumping, body moving from sheer adrenaline and willpower and determination. There was a gesture at the beginning, where he lashed his arms out and forward, reaching. But it didn’t feel like reaching so much as beckoning, scrambling,  _ clawing _ , for something, anything. For Death. For Death to return, for Death to— He thought of the night before, when he had momentarily wanted to pluck the iron from his neck, consequences be damned. And it felt like that again.

It felt like desperation, and he let that define him. Each jump this time was heavy and tormented and landed flawlessly but as if they could shatter the ice beneath him and he could fall away. Away from his fate and his life and his anxiety and how horribly he had done during his short program. From his failure and the failure of that one defining ancestor who had set the curse upon them. Who had been selfish and stupid and— Yuuri didn’t know, Yuuri couldn’t say. He was selfish too, but he was selfish in that he wanted to live where he wasn’t supposed to.

And Death, no,  _ Viktor _ — He had gotten his wish. He lived forever, where Yuuri might not see twenty five, or thirty, or thirty five. A juxtaposition of torment. Two opposing forces desperate for something neither of them could have. It felt like betrayal, to know the truth.

It felt like losing.

His final jump was one of anger, but his anger was different than it had been the prior season. He was not skating his own fear but the fear he would drive into Death. He was betrayed.

He finished, barely standing, chest heaving, hands shaking, and he curled one hand into a fist, eyes on the ring that sat upon one finger, cold and rough and old. Viktor was old and his family— Not one of them would be old, though they were all old, as a whole. Small fragments of a bigger, broken picture. A picture that was complete, now.

He took bronze. Narrowly, barely, and undeservedly, and he stood on the podium, fingers idly touching the medal. It felt heavy and he sighed, and waved as he should.

Maybe it was a good thing, he thought, in the flash of the cameras. Maybe this was the awakening he needed. Maybe he could let the truth define him, rather than the curse.

(it still felt like losing)

—

His apartment felt lonely as he packed, a few weeks later, for home. He would stay there two weeks. Two weeks more than he suddenly wanted. He missed his mother, and Mari, and— He missed home, but he didn’t miss what home meant to him now. The onsen was a haven, was a safe place. Was a small bit of hope for the hopeless. He understood that now, and he felt sad for his sister.

And he spent his last day in Detroit on the ice, with Celestino, working out the kinks that Worlds had brought about. His confidence wavered during some jumps and less so on others, but it was a problem all the same. So he practiced more and it only made it worse, despite the small burst of success he had had during his free skate at Worlds. It was gone now.

And as he left for the day, unlacing his skates slowly, Celestino stood by and considered him. He hadn’t been quite worried as he had been respectful of the space Yuuri needed. He knew by now to let him work his problems out on his own, and Yuuri would have almost two weeks back home to clear his head. He wasn’t looking forward to it as much as he thought he would.

“I’m taking on a new skater this summer,” he said, and Yuuri frowned and looked up at him, startled. His laces suddenly became forgotten. He had had other rink mates, had some even now. But most of the others were junior level and he had never made much effort to get to know them beyond what he needed. He helped, sometimes, giving pointers and skating with them. But he was an introvert at heart. It made it easier, to live alone and be alone and stay home. He liked it that way.

But  _ Viktor _ had yet to show himself since Worlds, eluded the answers to so many more questions he had raised, and Yuuri was almost relieved. He no longer wanted those answers. What he had now weighed heavy on his heart. But he had disappeared, all the same, and Yuuri had wanted it for so long only now he didn’t. Now he felt empty and alone.

But a new rink mate—

Maybe something new was what he needed.

“And, well— He’s coming over from Thailand, and you two are close in age, so I thought—” The man fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, pressing it into Yuuri’s hand with a smile. “I thought you might be able to help him adjust. He could use a friend.” And Yuuri saw through it.  _ He _ needed a friend. “Anyway, his name is Phichit. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”

Yuuri stared down at the paper, at the name scrawled across it in Celestino’s loopy handwriting and, beneath it, a number. 

So Yuuri considered it.

—

Home was just as he remembered it. But his mother’s face, which had been pinched with lines of worry when he first left, was now bright. She was happy to see him and she stayed close to him from the moment he walked in the door, a hand on his shoulder here, a small touch to his back there, and always too big smiles. He missed it, he had missed her so much. And Mari was the same as usual. Tired, bags under her eyes, hair ruffled and messy. She didn’t hug him, but it wasn’t like her to do so.

And there was a strange warmth that lodged itself within him the moment he crossed the threshold of the onsen, and it burned in the pit of his stomach, made his chest tight. He had never noticed it before, the power of the blessing, the hot heat of it, as if he himself was in the waters of the hotspring. And it started small, barely there, and itched at him and burned at him more the longer he stayed.

It made him anxious.

His mom made katsudon for dinner and it served as a suitable distraction. And the days after he spent away as often as he could. He visited Minako, and Yuuko and Takeshi and the triplets. And Ice Castle Hasetsu. He went there every morning, rising early and stretching and then running and then skating. It was the same routine he had back in Detroit, but it felt different, back in Hasetsu. And he was noticeably alone, through all of it.

After a week he worked up the courage to head up to the attic. It was dusty as Mari had said and there were boxes, some of which were damaged and old, the contents charred or destroyed by water from long past disasters, but crammed into a box all the same. He sat on the floor in the middle of it all, one box open beside him, the box he had come to find, but not doing much of anything with it. He felt obligated, now, to see what he could find. But he didn’t want to know what he would find, anymore.

But he wanted answers. He deserved answers. And Viktor, he had abandoned him with nothing else but a terrible truth and too many blanks to fill in and too many heavy questions that were maybe best left unknown. Viktor was  _ death _ , but he was also— He was something else. He had been just a man, once.

There was movement, behind him, and he turned, eyes tired and heavy from the dust around him, and he saw Mari crouched at the top of the stairs. There was barely room for a person to stand, cramped as the space was, and Mari was as tall as he was and so stepped over and dropped to her knees beside him. It reminded him of when she had first told him of the curse and had sat next to him, close, comforting but from a distance.

“What are you up to?” she asked, and Yuuri looked down to the book sitting in his lap. It was old, bound in cracked, faded leather, and inside the cover, which was closed now, was written the name  _ Okami Kei. _ He hadn’t yet worked up the courage to open it. It felt invasive, despite the truth it surely had within. Viktor had told him, before, that she had known the truth, and surely the truth was written across the yellowing, falling apart pages.

But he looked down at the journal and made no move to open it and didn’t answer Mari.

She sighed. “Listen, I know you’ve been talking to him. I know you’re—” She dragged a hand through her hair, tousling it and sending the hair band in it falling to the floor. She picked it up and the black cloth was marred grey with dust. She shook it, but it was something to do with her hands more than it was to knock the dust off. “Whatever you think you’re hoping to do or, or to  _ learn _ , you need to stop before you get—” She didn’t say, but Yuuri knew.

Before he got careless. But it was fear that would make him careless, and he wasn’t afraid. He was just tired. He reached down and curled his fingers across the breaking spine of the journal, careful. “I know what I’m doing, Mari,” he whispered, and he shifted so that he could meet her eyes. She looked concerned. It was a look he was familiar with. “Can you do something for me?”

She nodded, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Can you trust me? I need you to—” He swallowed the words, hesitant. “I need you to trust me.”

She reached out and caught his shoulder. “Alright,” she said. “But please, be careful. Whatever it is you’re doing, it won’t protect you from—” She only squeezed his shoulder in place of the words they were both thinking. The inevitable. There was always the inevitable hanging over them.

He never did go through the other boxes and in the end he only left with the journal tucked into his bag, even though he couldn’t talk himself into reading it. Maybe soon. Maybe eventually it would feel right to invade the privacy of a long dead ancestor. Maybe when the inevitable finally felt real.

And then he went back to Detroit, with no more answers than he had before. Back to his lonely apartment, which felt empty and cold and— He felt alone, he realized a week later, as he stood in his kitchen, which screamed at him how empty it was, the silence loud and painful. He was lonely, and seeing his family and his friends back home only made it worse.

On a whim he fished out the paper Celestino had given him, with Phichit’s name and number scrawled across it. He had wedged it in the pages of a book and he pulled it out and stared down at it for a long moment before pulling out his phone. He spent almost an hour, considering the number and then his phone and then, again, the number, before he finally managed to compose a text he felt was appropriate.  _ I’m Yuuri Katsuki _ , he wrote,  _ Celestino gave me your number. We’re going to be rink mates soon. _

The response was almost immediate and he smiled as he looked down at the response. Three exclamation points and nothing else.

Maybe something new was what he needed. Maybe he should stop putting all else second.

He looked down at the text and he laughed. He didn’t laugh enough anymore, and it felt like living.


	6. Year 4, part 2

Phichit, it turned out, was a huge fan. He gushed about Yuuri’s past programs; His favorite was Anger. He told him, rather embarrassed, that he had been challenging himself to learning the short program. For practice.

Yuuri was flattered. Unbelievably flattered.

Phichit was a better skater than he humbly admitted. Yuuri knew because he had looked up a few of his performances on Youtube. He didn’t tell his new friend that, because it felt strange to tell a virtual stranger that he had looked up videos of him on Youtube.

But they were hardly strangers now. They had been texting back and forth and talking on the phone for almost two weeks. Yuuri felt like he had known him much longer.

He had a very popular instagram and Yuuri made an account to follow him, after some convincing from Phichit that he should use the app.

And Phichit had filled the account with selfies and pictures of the cities he had been to. He skated invitationals, had skated a few opens, as well. But he hadn’t made it to the Grand Prix Final yet, though he had also competed in a few of the lead ups. Yuuri, horrified, realized he had skated against him at the Cup of China the year he had performed the theme  _ Anger _ . He never mingled with the other skates and he hadn’t even noticed Phichit.

Phichit had placed fifth.

And all the while, his apartment felt emptier and emptier, with Viktor gone, with Phichit far away at the other end of a phone. Viktor never showed himself and everyday Yuuri thought would be the day he reappeared, and he didn't know if the feeling growing within him was because he missed him or because he needed answers. 

The journal he had brought with him from Hasetsu lay untouched where he had shoved it away in a drawer. He didn’t want those answers. Not yet.

Then, after another week of texting and facetime with Phichit, Yuuri looked around at his empty, lonely apartment and realized he had begun to enjoy the company his new friend provided.

“Have you made living arrangements yet? For when you arrive.” He'd be arriving in a little over a month. 

The response was twenty minutes later. “Not yet. Celestino was going to arrange it for me.”

Yuuri took a sad look around his apartment. “I could use a roommate?” He texted, and this time the response was immediate. Three exclamation points.

 

He went with Celestino to the airport when Phichit flew in, and he waited, anxious, hesitant, as his plane’s arrival time flashed across the terminal marquees.

Phichit practically flew into his arms when he saw him and it was strange to Yuuri, foreign to have so much contact with another person. Normally he felt it the kind of thing to bother him and unnerve him and set him hard into anxiety but with Phichit it felt almost natural.

He was a great roommate, neat and tidy and always there to chat. And as a skater he held himself back. Yuuri realized it almost right away and he took too much time from his own skating to correct him and help him. “You’ll make finals next year for certain,” Yuuri told him and Phichit grinned wide.

“You really think so?” Yuuri nodded.

He was every bit the person Yuuri had come to know via late night texts. And he was a  _ marvelous _ skater. A marvelous, cheerful person; He was all smiles. He fell at the rink with laughter and beamed even on the hard days.

It was strange. It was a far cry from how Yuuri had been living. Phichit was a bright spot of sunshine where before Yuuri had been haunted only be gloom.

Death— No,  _ Viktor _ , no longer watched him. Yuuri hadn’t seem him so much as once since his abysmal performance at Worlds. It was funny that Phichit filled that gap now. He’d only known him a short time but he’d known Viktor for what now felt like a lifetime.

In some way it  _ had _ been a lifetime.

 

“We should go out.” Yuuri had become restless lately, his time too much occupied with putting together a routine to music he hadn’t quite decided on yet, which was adapted to a theme he also hadn’t quite decided on. He stood in the rink, practically draped over the barrier. It pressed hard into his chest, sharp for all it was intended to be a protection.

Phichit was unlacing his skates and he looked up with a bright smile. “Sure,” he said. “Do you have something in mind?”

He didn’t. He’d been in Detroit for years but he’d only rarely gone out to explore. He’d joined classmates for lunches, on occasion, but he wasn’t feeling any place in particular.

His mind wandered to his first year in the states, to the struggle of adapting. “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

The coffee shop Celestino had taken him too so many years before, where he had expressed with concern the direction of his career, was as droll as he remembered it. He’d become accustomed to burnt, hurried coffee, choked down in the morning rush to the rink after a rough night of sleep, and so the coffee here was good enough. It was familiar.

Phichit clung to his coffee and Yuuri could tell he was tired, as much as he kept it quiet. “Have you picked out your theme yet?” he asked.

Yuuri had been narrowing it down, jotting notes down after a session on the ice. He wasn’t in love with his final pick, but he still liked it for what it was and what it meant to him and how well he knew he could capture it on the ice.

In the end it came down to that. He had to become it. He knew he could, because he could feel it.

He looked past Phichit, to the empty table behind him, hoping, for the first time in a while, to see a familiar mop of gray hair. There was no one there.

“Solitude,” Yuuri decided. “My theme will be solitude.”

He didn’t realize how much it might hurt Phichit until he caught the look on his face the moment he’d uttered the words. “Are you really so lonely?” he asked softly. Yuuri wasn’t sure.

At the beginning of the year, before Phichit, he had felt it, certainly. Now it was a hole where something should have been, only in the peripheral. It danced in a far corner of his mind, forgotten much of the time. But it was a hole in his heart all the same, and he couldn’t quite shake it.

“It’s just that—” Yuuri considered his words carefully, looking down at the lid to his coffee. It was getting cold, he knew. He would drink it anyway. “I’ve lost someone.” He couldn’t be entirely honest with Phichit, but he trusted him more than anyone he had in awhile. “I’ve lost someone and I miss them. I can’t shake it.”

He took a sip of his coffee and it had indeed gotten cold.

Phichit was nodding slowly when Yuuri finally chanced a look at him. Yuuri could tell he didn’t quite understand, but he sympathized. “Did you, uhh, want to talk about it?”

Yuuri laughed. “I’ll skate it out, I think. For the Grand Prix.”

Phichit laughed. “You are so aesthetic,” he said and Yuuri laughed at the word. He had never thought about it that way, but Celestino had told he was typecast. Aesthetic felt a more appropriate word to use. “You’re nothing like I expected, you know,” he added.

Yuuri didn’t ask what he meant because he knew.

Maybe it was a good thing.

 

The music was Tabula Rosa, for the free skate. Ave Maria for the short program. A sad song, made better through skating, drawn out; then Tabula Rosa as a strong finale. Even feeling and beauty drawn from sadness had an end in the despair that it embodied. A full circle back to his beginning. Viktor there, once, but now gone, as he had been his entire life up until he came of age to be haunted.

And it was beautiful and he performed it first, in its completion, for Phicht, and as he drew to the final movement, chest rising and falling hard from the momentum of it, from the feeling he poured into it, Phichit had tears in his eyes.

“It is too much,” he said at last. “It is, it is beautiful.” He smiled but it was sad and with heart, with the feeling his program had drove into his heart. “It’s your best yet.”

 

Viktor wouldn't be there, and it would be his best yet. A piece put together as a statement to his sorrow, to how much he missed the spectre. And he wouldn’t be there to see it.

It felt like spite.

He smiled. “It will get me to finals, at least. I’m certain.” He had never before had such confidence in his own skating as he did now. He didn’t need to define himself by his life and the curse and the impact of the curse upon him. He needed to define himself by himself and how he wanted to be, and so he forgot Viktor. He pushed him from his mind.

This was solitude, and this was letting go of it. This was inviting in what he had never allowed in before: Phichit, his coach, Mari, Minako, Yuuko. His mother.

Finals came and he drifted out onto the ice for his free program, a shroud of white and lace wrapped about him. He was a ghost. He was the ghost that had left him. An opposite of sorrow, a kind of sorrow embraced by acceptance instead of regret and denial and the painful process of overcoming it. It was sorrow, overcome.

And the moment he struck his starting pose, his ring burned. He grit his teeth, anger filling him, enraged that Viktor would show himself at the critical moment and  _ ruin _ this for him. His opening was stiffer than it should have been, his posture too rigid. 

He ignored it.

He skated for himself and for no one else. He couldn’t let Viktor ruin it.

The notes were slow and drawn out as the music started and he drifted, slow. It was slower than the music he had previously skated to. A challenge in the change of it, in the slow notes and the long drops in the crescendo. And so he skated slow and steady and with lots of sweeping motions that brought him close to the ice, the kind that brought emotion into slow skating. His jumps were timed carefully. It had been the biggest struggle, with no notes that cried out for a jump and only steadiness. But they were timed as they should, with raised arm on his landing, a leg sweeping out and behind him with some.

It was beautiful, it was beyond grace and beyond elegance and something else entirely. He drew to a slow stop, sweeping carefully into it and into a spin, slow and long and patient and dizzying. And then he rose, reaching for the sky, reaching for something that wasn’t really there.

And when he was done, he looked at the crowd and not to the spot where Viktor stood.

It was a personal best. A world record. It was beyond what he ever thought he could skate, even with newfound confidence in his ability. He cried at the kiss and cry and for all of his personal restraint and notorious quietness and introvertness, he cried and he didn’t care that the world saw. They were tears of joy, coming off a program built around sadness.

It was almost funny.

 

Death was back and Yuuri dodged him, refused to glance his way. He was there, at the banquet, just another face in the sea of people. Yuuri sipped his champagne and ignored him. And then he had more champagne, when his gaze started to wander. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t  _ fair _ .

For the first time in so long it felt as if he had skated only for himself, accepting what had come. Viktor had snatched that away from him.

 

Death showed in his hotel room, when Yuuri finally stumbled into it sometime well passed midnight. He was skating the line between tipsy and drunk and he glared at the man as he fell across his bed, burying his face in the pillows. Hotel pillows were the best, and he let out an angry scream into them.

“Go away,” he said, without looking in Death’s direction. “You were gone and I was  _ happy _ with that. Why do you have to keep ruining it.” He rolled over so that he was staring at the ceiling and it spun as he blinked at it. Maybe he was drunker than he thought.

Viktor was only quiet. Angry, Yuuri snatched up one of the pillows and threw it at him. He missed and Viktor didn’t so much as flinch. He looked different, though, now that Yuuri finally had half a mind to look his way. Hair that was once long and sleek was now chopped short.

“I hate your stupid haircut,” Yuuri told him. Viktor only laughed. He sounded weary.

“I want to know more,” he said at last, rolling his head so that he met the spectre’s eyes. “I deserve answers.”

“I don’t have the answers you want to hear,” he said softly and Yuuri felt his resolve weaken. His voice was different, somehow quieter, more human.  _ Sad _ . Yuuri thought of the tucked away journal, which probably had so little answers. He doubled down.

“ _ Viktor _ ,” Yuuri said, reaching out an arm towards him. “I want to know.”

He flinched to hear his own name. “I’m not Viktor anymore,” he murmured. “I haven’t been Viktor in a very long time.” But he had been Viktor to Yuuri ever since he’d whispered the name to him.

Yuuri longed to reach out and touch him, and he pushed himself upright, stopping short of climbing off the bed. “You were just a man, once,” Yuuri whispered. He understood that much, now, but he needed to hear it from him. “Before you wronged Death.”

“I was once, yes,” he told him. He had been Victor, and it was strange to think of him that way, with the name of a man and not the name of a figment, a concept. “And it wasn't your family that wronged Death, it was I who wronged your family.”

Yuuri felt ill. “No,” he whispered, “We were both punished.”

“No, Yuuri. I got my wish and your family got Death.”

Yuuri was silent, turning it all over in his mind. He was confused and he wished, at times, that Death— No, that  _ Viktor _ had never told him the truth. It made it harder to come to terms with it all, when he had struggled so much to accept those things he could not control in his life.

_ I don’t have the answers you want _ . Yuuri wished he didn’t have the questions to ask.

“But I suppose you’re right. My wish is it’s own form of punishment, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” Yuuri asked. He didn't know. He wouldn't live forever, he wouldn't even live half as long as he should. Was it really so bad for him? “How long has it been? How long is forever?”

Viktor looked at him and he clasped a hand over his heart. “Too long,” he told him. “I want it to end. I wanted it to end a long time ago.”

“Will it ever?” Yuuri asked. “Does forever have an end?”

Viktor smiled, suddenly, and it was alarming. It was cruel, but an inward cruelty; It was meant for himself but not for Yuuri. “It ends when yours ends,” he told him and Yuuri’s blood ran cold.

“We all have to die,” he whispered. “I have to die, for you to—”

“No, not all of you. It ends when there's one of you left.”

Yuuri shook, suddenly. He thought of his sister, and the fear she kept barely contained. “There are only two of us,” he said. His dad had had two siblings, and one of them had had a child. All of them were dead. Yuuri thought about their deaths. He’d never thought of it before, even after he’d learned about the curse. They were part of it too, and it had taken them too. How close Viktor had come to ending it, only to have his father have two children, just before Viktor could snatch the last of his father’s siblings.

Now it had to be him or it had to be Mari. That was the real punishment, that one of them would live but they would have no one left. If Death took his sister instead, if  _ Viktor _ took Mari instead of him— He thought he might vomit. The alcohol settled in his stomach didn’t help. “Why do you do this? Why do you have to do this to us?”

Viktor sighed and stood. “I’m not Death,” he said at last. “I’m only  _ your _ Death. Your family’s Death. I only exist to take you, and your sister, and your father.” His father, Viktor had taken his father from him and he barely remembered the man that should have been there in his life, who wanted to be there. They all wanted to be there, but that couldn’t be the case. “Death, as it actually exists, as  _ he _ actually exists— He’s abstract. He takes everyone who’s time has come, all across the world, at once and abruptly the moment they die. They die on their own, as the world dictates it, but Death is who bears their soul away. He makes them dead, once the world has seen fit to kill them.”

“I don’t—” Yuuri swallowed. “I don’t understand.”

“Everyone dies,” Viktor said. “Everyone and everything that ever exists and ever will exist. Death doesn’t dictate who dies and how it happens, not normally. He is only there when it does happen, when a person’s time has come. And your time comes when your protections are gone. And I  _ make _ it happen. I don’t  _ kill _ you, so much as I just usher you from life.”

“How?” Yuuri croaked out. He tried to recall how so many in his family had died. A heart attack, his mother had told him when he was young, when the news of his father’s death had reached them. His cousin, 19 years old, a car crash.

Viktor cocked his head, breathing out a sigh. “I snatch the heart from your body,” he said at last. “I stop it beating.” A heart attack, a crashed car, a death in the middle of sleep. A stopped heart. All it was was a stopped heart. 

Yuuri’s own heart thumped loud in his chest and he struggled to breath, overwhelmed, terrified, more terrified than he had been when he had first seen Death, when Mari had first hugged him, sad and angry and tired. All of them were so tired, and he was the most tired, because he knew, now. He knew the truth and the truth made it worse. He hated it, hated Viktor for sharing it with him, but he looked, now, like the truth was setting him free. He smiled and though it was sad it was the most  _ real _ smile he had ever seen from him.

“I think,” Viktor said. “I think I’m going to go away for awhile.”

Yuuri didn’t know how he felt to hear it. “Like before?”

Viktor shook his head and the fringe of his new bangs danced. “No, not like before.” But not for good, either. He would always be there eventually.

That was the curse.


	7. Year 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't done a heavy proofread on this because I was so eager to post it, so please excuse any mistakes. Every single one of you commenting on this fic brings me joy and a lot of you have wondered if I plan to finish. I do. I have an exciting conclusion planned, just one or two more chapters. I've just been so busy.
> 
> The [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hc0HOb4Z-w) for this chapter was picked out ages ago and I'm so excited to get to share it. This link has a very loud part near the end, so please be mindful of it.
> 
> Love you all.

True to his word, Viktor was gone.

Not in the way he had been before—when Yuuri had danced with the anxiety that he might return at any time, when that fear and anxiety had eventually given way to the  _ hope  _ of seeing him again—now he was gone in the forever sort of way. He was  _ gone _ .

In his heart, in the rational part of his mind, Yuuri know he wasn’t well and truly gone. And especially not forever. Eventually the time would come and Yuuri would find his death upon him and so Viktor would be there, ready to take him.

Something inside of him broke to think it might be the only time he would ever see him again. He’d grown attached in the worst sort of way. He had come to favor and to love Death. And not only Death itself but  _ his _ Death.

A horror rose in Yuuri that Viktor might instead be in Japan, hovering around the onsen and around Mari, waiting for her to instead make the mistake that would let him take her instead of Yuuri. Whoever died first broke the curse. If Mari died first, Yuuri got to live.

Yuuri didn’t want to die, but he didn’t want for Mari to die more so. He would die before her, he knew it. If that was what it came to. She had only ever lived with the fear and the darkness hanging over her, and Yuuri had accepted it and embraced it. If he died first and the curse was broken, then she would get to live the life she always should have lived. For the both of them.

A horrible thought entered Yuuri’s mind that maybe they could have it both ways. He could stave off death long enough to have a family, to send the curse forward. He could curse them, instead. Or Mari could do the same. Then it wouldn’t hang over Yuuri—that his death would mean Mari’s life. It wouldn’t mean anything then but his own early demise.

Maybe Viktor wanted that. Everyday Yuuri survived brought them closer to that moment.

He would never have a family, he decided. Just to spite Viktor. To spite the curse. Never.

In a moment of anger he hated his father, for doing this to them. It was him that brought the curse down onto his children, because he had selfishly decided to have a family, when that was all it took to feed the curse longer. For them to have never been born would have brought the curse that much closer to it’s inevitable end.

In a twisted cycle of grieving—grieving for what, he couldn’t say—Yuuri moved from anger to eventual acceptance. There was nothing to be done for it. Viktor was gone and that was that.

He was relieved.

 

He missed him.

 

World’s came and went and with it any desire or inspiration to skate again. He would never be able to skate as he had before, he felt it in his heart. Death, like a muse, had driven him to glory and to fame, it had shaped his life as a skater, and now it was gone. He had burned himself out and every routine forward would be tainted with the loss.

It would never be as it once was.

He danced with the thought of retirement.

Phichit, when he found himself mentioning it to his friend, was aghast.

“Yuuri!” he was dramatic and he threw himself onto Yuuri’s bed, narrowly avoiding the laptop propped open on it. “You can’t retire! You’re the best skater in the world!”

Yuuri blushed at the comment but protested all the same, embarrassed to be called out as such. “Not the  _ best _ ,” he said with a laugh, dropping down onto the bed next to Phichit. He dragged his laptop on his lap, closing out the schoolwork he had been working on lest Phichit roll over onto it and destroy the device.

Phichit rolled his eyes. “You won gold at Worlds, Yuuri,” he deadpanned.

Yuuri flushed.

“Again.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Yuuri, you have a  _ fan club _ .”

Yuuri thought for a moment he was joking, but he clearly wasn’t, given the look on his face. He was grinning ear to ear. “Really?” Yuuri asked, hesitant.

“Yes! Of course you do.”

Yuuri laughed. “And I assume you’re president of my fanclub, right?”

“Absolutely!”

The fell silent for a moment and Yuuri sighed. “I suppose I’m just struggling to find inspiration, is all,” he said at last.

Phichit shrugged and stood, stretching high onto his toes. “You said that last year, too.”

He had.

 

Yuuri skated. That much he still wanted to do, only his heart wasn’t in it as he carved circles across the ice. There was nothing in it for him and there were no eyes on him as there had been before. He had skated his heart out already, and he had skated it out for Viktor.

He regretted it, now; He hadn’t the energy to be angry, though.

Instead, he helped Phichit with his coming program. He walked him through choreography and complicated jumps. Phichit was closer and closer to mastering them by the day. “You’d be a great coach, Yuuri,” Phichit told him, face flushed, laughter on his lips.

Yuuri blushed. “Maybe I can do that, when I retire.”

Phichit shook his head and pushed against him. It sent the two of them twirling together across the ice. He laughed the entire time. “Really, Yuuri. One more season, at least?”

“Okay,” Yuuri agreed. “One more season.”

 

One more season, though, meant Yuuri had to go out with a bang. He was no closer to doing that than had had been before, but it was a starting point.

 

Phichit spent a lot of time with him, helping him decide on music. “Something like what you did a few seasons ago, maybe?” He flicked through a playlist of classical music, eyes critical. “Your theme was Fear, I think.”

Yuuri shrugged, uncertain, hesitation tripping up his voice. “It was,” he confirmed, scrolling through a playlist. “It would be a good way to end my career on, to return to where I started.” He struggled, though, to reconcile who he had been with who he was now. The scared, anxious boy from before felt a lifetime away. It felt hard to imagine skating something too similar. He didn’t feel fear for Death now. He felt something quite the opposite. Relief that it would eventually come. Acceptance.

He thought about it hard, about where he was now as opposed to where he  _ had _ been. That was the key. This would be his final skate and he was determined to make it the final, culminating piece to his career. He was telling a story, unintentionally, and now that story needed a conclusion.

He had to embody that. His story was coming to an end.

Phichit leaned over, slightly and slowly, until their shoulders brushed and Yuuri settled into it, comfortable. Maybe Yuuri should have seen it coming, maybe he was partner to the feelings, but Phichit had become close to him and he had become close to Phichit. One of his only real friends in the world.

And Phichit, leaning close as he was now, felt natural. When he looked over Phichit’s eyes were on him, lids lowered, face flush. And Yuuri, despite himself, felt his own face heat up.

He should have seen it coming.

Phichit’s lips were chapped when they met his, from too much time spent skating through the frigid air of the ice. His face, though, exuded warmth and yuuri leaned into it even though he shouldn’t have. His heart wasn’t there, and every moment the kiss lingered pronounced it louder and louder.

His heart wasn’t there.

He jerked away abruptly and Phichit moved away, eyes wide, face heated in what now was clear embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing himself. “I should not have—”

It was awkward, and it was entirely Yuuri’s fault. He looked at Phichit’s blushing face as he quickly looked away and shifted to move from the bed, aware of his mistake, of the boundary he had just crossed between the two of them.

Yuuri caught his wrist before he could go, squeezing it in what he hoped was reassurance. “Wait,” he said softly, and Phichit stopped, one leg dangling off the side of the bed where he had been moving off of it.

“I’m so sorry,” Phichit said again.

Yuuri shook his head. He cared for Phichit, he  _ did _ , and that this had come up, now that the feelings were there and bared, Yuuri knew in his heart he couldn’t reciprocate. He could  _ never _ reciprocate. He would never truly have his heart there, with him. His heart wasn’t among the living anymore, and how ridiculous was that?

He imagined, briefly, a world where he wasn’t cursed, where his existence wasn’t given meaning solely through his ancestry, his coming, looming death. Where early on he had allowed himself to care for others the way others might, not fearful of becoming too close to anyone who would grieve his early death. Not attaching himself to the world so it would be easier to accept when the time came.

Instead he attached himself to death. Death.

“It’s not you,” Yuuri told him softly, letting go of his wrist. Phichit looked away, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “It’s not you, it’s—there’s—”

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Phichit asked at last. “I always thought, but—” His friend must have read the sadness in Yuuri’s eyes because he sucked in a breath. Maybe all of it was finally clicking together for him: Yuuri’s despondency, his mournful themes, his hesitance to attach himself to anything. Phichit was one of his only real friends in the world, and it was not at all because Yuuri was incapable of making friends.

“Yes,” Yuuri sad at last. “There is. There  _ was _ .”

“You lost them, didn’t you?” Phichit whispered.

“Yeah,” Yuuri breathed out, thinking of Viktor and his parting words. “Yeah, I have.”

 

It threatened to change things, the sudden horrid awkwardness between them. Yuuri refused to let it. How was it fair for Yuuri to punish him for Phichit’s feelings? How was it fair for Phichit to do the same? They were friends and they were close and Yuuri, because Phichit was still amenable to it, couldn’t let that get in the way.

They fell back into their previous routine and this— It remained unspoken between them, with a silent understanding that that was that. Yuuri hurt that he couldn’t return the feelings and no doubt Phichit hurt that they weren’t returned.

But they were friends.

 

It clicked together one night, as Yuuri lay awake, staring at his speckled ceiling cast gray and ugly from dim moonlight shining through dreary curtains. His heart wasn’t for Phichit, but that was only because it was for Viktor—

No, it  _ had _ been for Viktor. And now Viktor was gone and all that was left was the pain of his absence.

Yuuri’s heart ached. And that was the conclusion that he had been so desperately looking for. And end to the story he had been telling on the ice.

Heartache. His end was heartache.

 

It was hard to put it all together, the most challenging of any routine he had done yet. But that was the beauty in it. He needed to end on a high note, he needed to finish what he had started, and in doing so he had to overcome every bit of it. The fear, the anger, the grief. It was a culmination of it all.

 

For the preceding skates he skated it, but not with his heart. Not the way he needed to to make it his  _ best _ . For that he waited for the Finals.

 

The ice was cold as it always was, slick and crisp beneath the glide of his skates. They were black and dark, like ink smeared across ice as he moved to the middle of the rink, the announcer’s voice a faint noise beneath the hum of the crowd, all drowned out by the beating of his heart in his ears. He was done. He was done and he was  _ ready _ to be done. And this was it.

On his head he wore a crown: iron and wrought and roughly forged together. His hair had become long—he had grown it out in the months preceding—and it was braided now into the iron, to keep it in place, held onto his head only be the smallest of tethers. And it was the only iron he wore. And he did it only for  _ this _ skate, his last ever skate. The free skate at the Grand Prix Final.

He had never before gone without the necklace or the ring, and he felt naked as he warmed up and waited for his queue. But it was a weight lifted from him in the most literal sense. He felt afloat as he drifted.

The crown was a risk. It was a prayer and a silent cry for Death to come to him. It was a  _ taunt _ . Come and get me, it said. I’m here for you if you can catch me.

This was a challenge. For him and for death. A final dance to commemorate all he had gone through to get where he was.

And this was it, only the soft, barely there touch of iron against his scalp to protect him. It was exhilarating.

He was a visage of mourning, draped in sheer black, as if he were the grim reaper himself. As he moved, the cloth fluttered behind him like robes, haunting. But this was no longer about embodying Death, as so many of his past programs had been. This was about coming to terms with his loss.

The music was  _ La Traviata Final: Prendi, quest’è l’immagine _ . It was the end of an opera marked by death. Violetta, a courtesan who through her life away for love, only to die penniless and poor.

Maybe it was a parallel, but really it was more of a stretch. But it was beautiful and it was breathtaking and it was heartbreaking.

It was heartache. It was Yuuri’s heartache. He yearned for Viktor, but he could never be with Viktor. And he had already thrown so much of his life into him. Into Death. Into the curse. He was done. This was his conclusion.

The crowd at last fell silent and the spotlight swivelled slowly onto him as the queue for his music finally started. His starting pose was simple. He stood, arms loose at his sides, posed just so to maximize the effects of the fabric that hung there, to accentuate the drapery. And he lifted his head up, as if weary, as if seeking something that wasn’t there and that he could never have.

He could never have Viktor.

Then the music started: a long, somber wail, soft but drawn out. Operatic in the best sense of the word.

Yuuri skated, he drew forward slowly, never leaving the pose fully, eyes still glued to the pipes and metal framework that hung above the rink. It was a slow, long procession across the ice, him, his ink black skates, the flutter of his robes.Then the music quieted, briefly  _ ever so _ briefly, and so he moved. It was a jump, a small one, that bled into a slow drift backwards across the ice.

Then, abruptly, it grew loud and stronger, gained a sudden burst of energy that he fed off of as he moved. A spin, another spin, a movement that had him moving from toe to toe to toe, dizzyingly. It was begging, a piece that cried out for love and for the love being lost. This was his heart, splitting, crying.

And then—A male voice joined the crescendo as the music grew, and this was where a partner would be—He skated a duet alone, moved as if only one half of a whole. That’s what heartache was. Him, alone, without the other half of his story. He had to tell it alone, when it was a story of two.

He moved with his arms out, as if someone else were behind him, hands on his waist. When he jumped, he jumped as of reaching out, as if prepared to fall into someone else’s arms. But there was no one there to greet him, and so he landed sharp and hard and swept angry across the ice.

Every movement jostled the iron crown, raised it up so that it bumped against his head. A small lifeline, barely there. Every jump threatened to toss it from his body, every wide swipe across the ice said  _ come for me _ .

Suddenly he wasn’t alone.

He landed after a jump and spun, just as the music returned to the soft wail. And when he left the spin there was Viktor, dressed in a flutter of white, moving alongside him, mirroring every motion. His face was as sad as Yuuri knew his own was. But it was him.

He was elegant as Yuuri was, as if all of his life he had been skating. And briefly, as they moved, Yuuri’s crown shifted, just so, and he felt the softest touch of cold against him as Viktor’s hand brushed his waist. It stopped his blood cold, sent his heart stuttering and skipping. And then the touch was gone and he was left longing for the touch, though he knew it would kill him.

This was love. His heartache would be the death of him.

Viktor, near the end, met his eyes, and Yuuri knew.

 

This was the end.

 

There was a loud, long shrill cry in the music, the final note: mournful and wretched, every ounce of agony left to be had let out. Yuuri dropped into his final spin and he spun until the final note. In the opera, Violetta met her death, the music drawing to a sharp halt.

Yuuri met his own. His heart broke a final time.

 

And when Yuuri looked up into the roar of the crowd and the burn of the lights overhead, Viktor was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who has read A Place on Earth, my super sad YoI fic, there is now a side fic for it featuring OtaYuri. Check it out.


	8. Year 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another chapter. And thank you everyone for all of the comments <3

He took silver.

There was a bittersweet beauty to it and he was  _ happy _ . There was a time in his career, early on, where he thought that year’s performance would be the  _ best  _ of his career. And every program after he thought the same. Surely  _ this _ will be the best. Surely  _ this  _ one will now be the best. Once, he had skated  _ Despair _ across the ice for the world to see, and he had thought that would be his peak, that there was no where to go from there.

But there had been nowhere to go but  _ up _ from there. And he had done.

He knew in his heart this time that this was his best. His final program for his final Grand Prix. The silver medal around his neck didn’t define the quality or the beauty or the intensity of his program. He defined it. Death defined it.

The the thick iron circlet woven into his hair, heavy and hot and bright, defined it.

And in his heart, alongside the happiness and the relief—relief that it was over, relief that he had maybe found what he needed—was another feeling that he was finally able to give words to.

He was in love. He was in love with  _ Death _ —no, he was in love with Viktor. Who he was now and the ghost of who he had been, once upon a time.

He sat at the kiss and cry and cried, fittingly, but he had no shame in it, only relief. It was over, his feelings were bared to the world. Maybe the whole world knew he was in love, that his heart ached for something—someone—he could never have.

Phichit sat beside him, fingers twined with his as he squeezed his hand—Yuuri had insisted he be there, because he was important to him and because he refused to let things fall apart with him, that much they had agreed to—and Celestino sat on his other side, weeping just as much as they were. A touching program.

Phichit sniffled and leaned against his shoulder. “I understand now,” he whispered, as his ranking was announced. He was only barely audible over the excited yelling from Celestino, but Yuuri heard him. He squeezed his best friends hand, thankful for what he had found in him.

 

The banquet was grand, as it always was, and Yuuri made small talk with the other skaters, aware of emotional provocation of his program more than ever now that he had other skaters in tears at it, all of them eager to speak with him. He hadn’t yet announced his retirement, and it was a relief that he waited, if only because it avoided him having to have more awkward conversations than he was already having.

But Phichit knew. And Celestino knew.

Amidst the conversation and Yuuri’s constantly heated face at the flattery directed his way was a burn he almost didn’t notice, emanating from the necklace he wore around his neck, tucked beneath the collar of his suit. It was foreign, after so long, and alarming when he did notice it, his mind struggling to put two and two together.

Then he blinked and glanced over and saw Viktor striding towards him through the crowd, who moved to let him pass as if they could see him there. Maybe it was the cold chill of his presence that drove them away, or maybe they felt the disturbance of the air as he moved.

Yuuri had tucked himself into a corner, finally relieved to find some peace and a moment to himself, however brief he knew it would be. His heart, though, skipped a beat and lodged itself in his throat as Viktor approached, dress equally as formal as everyone else present. He looked like he belonged there, just as much as he belonged in Yuuri’s life.

He smiled as he stopped in front of Yuuri and Yuuri cast a quick glance around, suddenly nervous to have his constant spector here and so out in the open. They had only ever shared small, private moments, but this was different. He would look a crazed person, if caught talking to himself in a corner. Maybe he could pass it off as too much champagne.

“Hey,” he whispered and Viktor smiled. This was it, this was what he had wanted. Viktor, with him, as if he belonged there, as if he wasn’t just a haunting visage. The raw truth hanging between them. It felt as if everything was out in the open, now. Viktor and the truth, the heart wrenching answers Yuuri had always wanted, the reason behind the steady beat of his heart whenever he was around.

Love. He was in love.

Viktor didn’t say anything, only reached out as if to touch his face. He drew himself short, of course, because never could they touch. It was as heartbreaking as everything else. The cold coming from him flushed Yuuri’s cheek and he leaned into it as if the hand was truly there. “Please,” he whispered,” Don’t go again.”

“I won’t,” Viktor finally said, dropping his hand back to his side. “I won’t. I’ll be here, always. I promise.”

It felt different than the curse. Viktor wasn’t going to be there because he had to be, but because he wanted to be. In all of their history, this was the defining moment. He was one of only two who were left, and he would get to spend his days with Viktor, until the time came. Yuuri reached up to his throat and pressed a hand to the burn of the necklace there, smiling.

He hadn’t thought about it in a while. That Viktor would have to take him from the world, eventually. But he was okay with that now. It would be Viktor that did it and that meant he got to spend the rest of his life with him.

Then Viktor vanished in an instant, the noise of the hall falling back to his ears, and Yuuri sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, taking a quick sip of his champagne.

 

The peace didn’t last, and it was a kid that stormed up to him, with a pinched face and a sweep of blonde hair. His suit was just on the verge of ill-fitting, a product of the rapid growth of teenage years. And he scowled as he came to a stop in front of Yuuri, one foot jostling against the ground where he stood. Nerves, hidden behind a tough facade.

_ “You!” _ he said, and his voice was thick with an accent. Russian. It reminded him of Viktor’s.

“Me?” Yuuri said, confused, looking him over as if doing so might give him an answer to why this kid had stalked over to him. Yuuri recognized him as one of the junior skaters, which gave him about as much of an answer as not recognizing him as such would have done.

“Yes, you,” he said again. He looked away and it was clearer now, he was nervous. He swiveled cold blue eyes back onto him and they were fiery. “I want you to be my coach.”

Yuuri choked on the words, eyes wide. “I don’t even know your name,” he sputtered. Between breaths he took a quick gulp of champagne, suddenly nervous himself, put on the spot as he was. “You want me?” He echoed. “To be your coach?”

The boy shoved his hands into his pockets, looking away again. “I’m moving from Juniors, for the next season.” Was all he said. No name, no other statement. Nerves, it was nerves.

Yuuri furrowed his brow. He looked young, maybe too young to be in the adult racket. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Sixteen.”

Still no name and it suddenly occurred to Yuuri that he may have offended him, saying so boldly that he had no clue who this boy was. He racked his brain and came up empty, all the while blue eyes bore into him.

“Yuri Plisetsky,” the kid said at last.

“Oh. We have the same name.” Another awkward silence. Yuuri managed another large swallow of champagne. “You want me to be your coach?”

Yuri nodded. “Yes. I heard you might be retiring.”

Yuuri’s stomach sank. Had the news already gotten out? “How did you hear that?” he asked. The official announcement would come after Worlds, if he got in.

Yuri shrugged. “Just a rumor going around, but you just confirmed it.”

He was a brat, Yuuri decided, considering him. He hadn’t thought too much about what he would do upon retiring, but he had dabbled with the idea of coaching. He’d practically coached Phichit through the summer, and he had enjoyed it, but more of that was because of the company he had. He couldn’t get a read on Yuri, though, and so he hesitated.

Either way, and as much as he missed his family, the thought of returning back to Japan, to the Onsen and it’s cursed blessing, wasn’t as appealing as it once might have been

“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll be your coach.”

He needed a change. This would be a good one.

 

He lay in bed that night with Viktor stretched out next to him, side by side and facing each other. “What now?” Yuuri asked him, swallowing down the lump forming in his throat. He was a bit tipsy, tipsy enough to finally address the problems they faced now, going forward.

“You be careful,” Viktor whispered. Yuuri had made it almost five years now. He was careful, he could keep being careful. But it wasn’t a proper answer.

“And Mari?” Yuuri asked.

Viktor’s face was grim. “She should be careful too.”

Yuuri drew himself upright, world tilting only the slightest bit. He stilled to let it pass. “And  _ then _ what?” he asked. This time it was to the chill of the air and not to Viktor himself. “When we grow old, and if we’re careful and we die,  _ die die _ —” He didn’t elaborate beyond that. They both knew what he meant. A natural death, a death that defied the curse. But Yuuri remembered—not one of them had ever died a natural death. Not since the very beginning. “Will the curse end then?”

Viktor sat up as well, dropping a hand just beside Yuuri’s, as if they were clasped together. But they weren’t and they never could be. Yuuri ached with the want to reach out and touch him. He wondered if his skin would be as cold as the air around him.

“I don’t know,” Viktor said.

“Maybe it will break the curse?”

Viktor shrugged and it occurred to Yuuri suddenly that when the curse ended, Viktor would finally die. Or maybe he wouldn’t, neither of them had a real clue as to what the end of the curse would mean to any of them.

Somewhere, in the back of Yuuri’s mind, a bug set itself in place. Maybe he could break the curse himself, maybe there was another way. He bit his tongue and said not another word of it to Viktor. He had told him once, in what felt like a lifetime ago, that he should enjoy his life, instead of worrying himself with it.

Fear would make him careless. But this wasn’t fear, this was a growing determination. Maybe there was a way to break the curse, and if there was a way then he would find it. He had to.

 

He found it in him to flip through the journal crammed away in a drawer, once he got hom. Viktor was around often, now, but no  _ always _ . And so he found a private moment to peruse it, not wanting to raise even the slightest hint of suspicion that he was seeking something more than just answers this time.

It was as he had expected: filled with private thoughts and recorded moments. They made his great grandmother seem human and real, and it was an unsettling read, to know her deepest thoughts and feelings, knowing the end she had come to, knowing the relationship she had had with Viktor.

She mentioned him often, referred to him simply as ‘friend’ throughout, but Yuuri knew it was him she was referring to. It was too obvious, knowing what he knew now. But it wasn’t a journal covering her whole life, only the middle—and how could such a small journal have spanned her lifetime—and something settled in him at the realization. There was more, and the journal cutoff on the final page, as if more were to come in another.

There was more, perhaps in the attic of his family home. Maybe lost to the ages. Yuuri thought of the boxes of mildewing pages, the charred remnants of barely saved books and photos and papers strewn in other boxes. He’d dug only long enough to find this one, but there might be more.

 

Before he went to Russia, he would go home, Yuuri decided. 

 

He arranged everything with Yuri through his current coach— _ old coach _ —and it was a process. He had Yuri’s number, he had given it to him at the banquet, typing it furiously into his phone, clearly trying to hide any amount of excitement he maybe had at knowing Yuuri had agreed to be his coach.

Yuuri couldn’t really say what was so appealing about himself, that a skater he had never once met wanted so desperately to have him as a coach that he cornered him at the banquet of all places. A simple email would likely have sufficed.

But Yuuri had to graduate, first, which he would do in the Spring, just before Worlds. And he was going to Worlds, the news had already been announced, and so he had held his tongue about retiring. And rumors be damned, he had sworn Yuri Plisetsky to silence on it. No one knew he would be flying to Russia a bit after Worlds, to become a coach to someone he barely knew. He’d told Mari and that was it.

Yuuri was a bit excited himself, doing something so spontaneous.

 

He took Gold at Worlds, but only barely, and  _ that _ was the bang he needed to go out on. Viktor skated the whole routine alongside him, and it gave the piece the final purpose that brought it from silver to gold. This was no longer heartache born of loss, this was heartache born of the frustration and the knowledge that he could never truly have the one he loved.

And Viktor felt it too. Yuuri kept his eyes on him every chance he could, during his program.

 

His announcement came, that he would retire, that this had been his last season, and then it broke loose, all of the tension and anxiety from so many years of the burden he had shoulders. He’d come so far, and he’s come that far through his skating, through practice and determination and growing love. He’d discovered himself through skating, and now it was over.

Still, he was happy.

The commotion it caused was expected. Phichit sent him pictures of news articles on it and Celestino mourned the loss of his best skater.

And on the tail end of that announcement came the news he would be leaving for Russia, to coach another rising star: Yuri Plisetsky.

Yuuri had never heard of him, or rather, he had never thought to remember the name, despite them sharing it. But after Yuri had approached him he had looked him up, watched his routines, and it had cemented his decision to coach him. His programs were exuberant and full of energy and it reminded Yuuri of his own skating, such was the intensity of the emotions he skated out. He understood why Yuri had approached him.

 

Leaving the states, leaving Phichit and Celestino, was heart wrenching and it was a long, bitter goodbye. But it was inevitable, to some extent. He couldn’t stay there forever, the story had to keep unfolding and his story was taking him elsewhere.

First to Japan, to his home, where he would stay a week. And then to Russia, where he would spend the rest of the season, perhaps longer, if Yuri would have him as a coach beyond that.

 

And then the disappointment came. He didn’t find what he was looking for in the attic, though he dug through box after box. Mari had been right, when she said there was a ton of stuff up there. Amulets and charms and iron chains. Boxes of burned parchment and books. Some of them were decipherable, but barely. And photos, so many photos and albums. It was an overwhelming search, because anything could be important but he was at a loss as to what to look for.

And every night he spent at the onsen was a night without Viktor. It weighed heavy in his heart, the decision he was making to try and break the curse. To lie to him and keep it secret. Because Viktor, much as he would have preferred the curse broken as well, seemed content to help them be careful, to ensure the curse ran it’s natural path. What would come would come. Death was inevitable.

 

He left home for Russia with a few trinkets and wards he had found, thinking and hoping that they might shine some light on something if he stared at them long enough. There was an answer somewhere, he just had to find it. Afterall, Viktor and his far far ancestor, the first of the curse, had found a way to ward death.

Maybe,  _ maybe _ , Viktor knew the answer, but Yuuri suspected that if did, then the curse would have been broken a long time ago.

 

If Yuuri broke the curse then Viktor would die, as he had wanted to for so long. Then Yuuri would spend his new life—untouched by the curse, destined to finally, perhaps, die a natural death—without Viktor.

 

Yuri was as much of a brat as Yuuri suspected from their brief encounter at the banquet. He shouldn’t have been surprised, because the programs of his that Yuuri had watched painted his personality across ice. Yuri Plisetsky was an angry kid, troubled and grumpy and snappy. But he respected Yuuri as his coach, where he was so clearly pushing back against his old coach, who continued to coach the other Russian skaters on the same ice.

But even so, as he watched the teenager skate angry figure eights across the ice, it was familiar, his anger, his frustration, his weariness with the world that was spelled across his face despite his fifteen years.

It reminded Yuuri of himself and he didn’t quite know why, because Yuri Plisetsky was much different, burdened with so many different problems from his own. And so he endured the kid, because it was what he wanted to do and, at some level, he realized it was what Yuri needed.

And he was skilled, breathtakingly gifted on the ice. All of fifteen and skating beyond his age. Yuuri spent the first week on the ice with him, learning what he could do, walking him through different jumps to ascertain his skill level, to decide on the best approach.

 

Everyday almost Viktor was there to watch, and Viktor was there as well in the cozy apartment he had gotten for his stay in Russia. It was astoundingly domestic, coming home to him there. He’d grown accustomed the constant chill of his presence, and it had gone more than a long way to prepare him for the cold of Russia. He was comfortable.

Viktor liked Yuri, though he made a few snide remarks while laughing, about how much of a brat he was. “But he seems a good kid,” he said and Yuuri nodded.

 

“It’s confusing, isn’t it? That we have the same name? Should I call you something else?” he asked.

Yuri eyed him warily. “Call me whatever you like, I don’t care,” he said and Yuuri grinned.

“I think I’ll call you Yurio,” he decided and Yuri glared daggers.

“Anything but that, I hate that.” So naturally it stuck and that was his name from then on.

 

And then one day, while Yuuri was on the ice with Yurio, talking to him about his plans for the choreography, Yuri looked past him, eyes unfocused, on some distant point and, concerned, Yuuri turned and saw that his eyes were on Viktor, who stood at the edge of the rink watching them. Yuuri smiled at him and then realized himself, turning his gaze back onto Yurio. He could see him, Yuuri realized. Yurio could see—

“That man is always here, watching you,” Yuri whispered and he sounded almost possessed, the way he said it, his voice so different than usual, small and almost frightened. Yuuri’s heart stuttered and he reached out to Yurio, alarmed.

“Yuri,” he said carefully. Yurio was still looking over his shoulder but now he started, eyes moving to meet his instead. “Yurio, can you see him?”

Yurio looked stricken, face pale, his hand shaking where he’d curled it against his other arm in an attempt for Yuuri not to notice. Yuuri reached out and caught him by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “Yuri, tell me, please. Can you see him?”

He nodded, slowly. “Who is he?” he asked, and his voice trembled.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on tumblr: melonbugg.tumblr.com  
> I'm 110% a Yuri on Ice and Aesthetic Blog.


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